Influence of Beer Brand Identification on Taste Perception

Author(s): Ralph I. Allison and Kenneth P. Uhl

Source: Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Aug., 1964), pp. 36-39
Published by: American Marketing Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3150054
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36

Influence of Beer Brand Identification

on Taste Perception
RALPH I. ALLISON
and
KENNETH P. UHL*

) As a company tries to find the factors accounting for strong and weak markets, typical consumer
explanations for both tend to be in terms of the physical attributes of the product. Carling Brewing
Company used a relatively inexpensive experiment to help dichotomize contributing influences as being
either product or marketing oriented and, also, to indicate the magnitude of the marketing influence
for various brands. The experiment involved the use of groups of beer drinkersthat tasted (drank) and
rated beer from nude bottles and from labeled bottles.

As a companytries to find the factorsaccountingfor
strong and weak markets, typical consumer explana-
tions for both tend to be about the physical attributes
of the product. That is, the product quality often be-
comes both the hero and the culprit, like Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, but with the hideous reversalcoming
not by night but by market.The experimentpresented
in this paper was also designedto give roughmeasure-
ments of the magnitudeof the marketinginfluences.
Unidentifiedand then labeled bottles of beer were de-
livered to homes of taste testing participantson suc-
cessive weeks. The drinkers'taste test ratingsprovided
the datafor the study.
THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN'
The principalhypothesissubjectedto testingthrough
experimentationwas this: "Beerdrinkerscannot distin-
guish amongmajorbrandsof unlabeledbeer either on
an overall basis or on selected characteristics."Beer
drinkerswere identifiedas males who drank beer at
least threetimesa week.
The test group was composed of 326 drinkerswho
were randomly selected, agreed to participatein the
study, and providednecessaryclassificationdata. Each
participantin the experimentwas given a six-pack of
unlabeledbeer, identifiedonly by tags bearingthe let-
ters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, or J. The labels had
been completelysoaked off and the crowns had been
* Ralph Allison is director of market research for National
Distillers Products Company and was formerly director of
planning and research for the Carling Brewing Company; Ken-
neth P. Uhl is associate professor of marketing and assistant
dean of the College of Business Administration at the State
University of Iowa.
' The
experimental design and the findings outlined are from
one market area. However, similar experiments were con-
ducted and similar results were obtained in several other
markets.
wire brushedto remove all brand identificationfrom
the 12-ounce deposit brown bottles. Each six-pack
containedthree brandsof beer with individualbottles
randomlyplaced in the pack so no one lettered tag
predominatedin any one position.2 There were six
differentpairs placed among the 326 participants.An
effort was made to give each participanta six-pack
that containedthe brandof beer he said he most often
drank.The groupsand numberswere placedas follows:
Placed
Group1 (AB, CD, EF) 53
Group2 (AB, CD, IJ) 55
Group3 (AB, CD, GH) 55
Group4 (AB, EF, IJ) 55
Group5 (AB, GH, IJ) 54
Group6 (AB, EF, GH) 54
326
A and B representedone of the company's beer
brands;C and D representedone major regionalbeer
brand;and E and F were one othermajorbrandof re-
gional beer. G and H were one national brand;and I
and J were the fifth well-knownbeer brandused in the
experiment.Among these five brandsthere were some
taste differencesdiscernible,
to experttaste testers.
The letteredtags (one aroundthe collarof each bot-
tle in the six-pack) carrieda generalratingscale from
"1" (poor) through"10" (excellent) on the one side
and a list of nine specific characteristicson the re-
verse side (see Exhibit #1). The specific characteris-
tics, whichincludedafter-taste,aroma,bitterness,body,
carbonation,foam, lightness, strength, and sweetness,
SPretesting gave no evidence of a positional or letter bias;
i.e., for participantsto drink or rate the beer in any particular
alphabetical or spatial order.

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INFLUENCEOF BEERBRAND IDENTIFICATIONON TASTE PERCEPTION 37

ExhibitI THE FINDINGS

RATINGTAGS The experimentproduceda number of useful find-
FrontSide BackSide ings. More specifically,evidence was availableto an-
swerthese questions:
1. Couldbeerdrinkers,in general,distinguishamong
variousbeersin a blindtest?
2. Could beer drinkersidentify"their"brandsin a
blindtest?
3. Whatinfluencewouldbrandidentification haveon
consumers'evaluationsof variousbeerbrands?
4. Whatinfluencewouldbrandidentification haveon
consumers'evaluationsof specifiedbeercharacter-
istics?

TasteDifferencesin a Blind Test

TESTBEER"F" CHECK
THEBOXTHAT
BEST The data producedby the experimentindicatedthat
Don't forget to give us your
EACH
DESCRIBES the beer drinkers,as a group,could not distinguishthe
CHARACTERISTIC
opinionaboutthis beer by Too Just Not
taste differencesamongthe brandson an overallbasis.
placinga cross(X) in the CharacteristicMuch Table 1 contains the evidence on these ratings. Basi-
ONE blockof the Rating Enoahb
EWnoul

[7 ]
Scale that best expresses taste
After
youropinionaboutit. ] Table I
RATING SCALE Aroma [ 0f0 BLIND OVERALLTASTETEST--ALL PARTICIPANTS
EXCELLENT
a Bitterness ] 0 Significantly
Overall different from
Body D I I Beer brand rating other brands'
Carbonation7] 5 I- AB 65.0 No

D -loam
[] 0
Lightness I I
Strength I L
Sweetness I
POOR
VERY
Don't forget to rate this Don't forget to rate this
beer on the other side of beer on the other side of
this card. this card.
could each be rated as "too much," "just enough,"or
"not enough."These nine specific characteristicswere
selected from a much larger field. Their selection was
based on both greater agreementon meaning among
beer drinkersand on the ability of beer drinkers,in
general,to identifyand ratethem.
One week after the distributionof the unlabeled
beer, the empties,nude except for the ratingtags, were
picked up and new six-packs left behind. This time,
however, the bottles were properly labeled with each
six-pack containing six differentbrands of beer (the
same five brandsplus a sixth brandthat was added for
the labeled test). In addition,each deposit bottle was
tagged (as shown in Exhibit #1), but these tags were
identifiedby the letters K throughP. A week after the
second placement the empties and rating tags were
pickedup.
CD
EF
64.1
63.3
No
No
GH 63.4 No
LI IJ 63.3 No
'At the .05 level.
I Source: Carling BrewingCompany
cally, there appeared to be no significantdifference
amongthe variousbrandsat the .05 level.
Beer drinkerswhen asked to rate the nine character-
istics listed in Table 2 as "not enough,""justenough,"
and "too much,"indicateda differencethat was signifi-
cant in "just enough"votes for one characteristicon
one beer (carbonationof brand CD). Other than the
one case, the reporteddifferencesamong brandswere
so minor as to be not significant.A second analysisof
the data, in which the "just enough" category was
treatedas a neutralor a zero and the "too much"and
"not enough"positionsas +1 and -1 respectively,in
general, substantiatedthe percentagefindings.8In ad-
dition, this analysis indicatedthat four of the charac-
teristics-aroma, body, foam, and strength-were
rated rather uniformly among the brands as "not
enough" and one characteristic-bitterness-received
a clear "too much" rating.Based on the overall taste
test and the specifiedcharacteristicstest, the conclusion
SThis three-place neutral center scale is in need of further
testing and comparison with four- and five-position scales to
help determine the amount of bias it induces.

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 38 JOURNALOF MARKETING AUGUST1964
RESEARCH,

was that beer drinkerscould not distinguishtaste dif- brandGH must not have drunkthe brandbecausethey
ferencesamongthe beer brandspresentedin unlabeled preferredits flavor-they rated two of the four com-
bottles. parisonbrandsas superiorin flavor and the other two
as no less than equal to "their"brand.And based on
Table2 the overall taste ratings,the regulardrinkersof brand
BLINDTASTETEST-SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS CD could just as well have drunkany of the othercom-
(All Participants) parison brands-there were no significantdifferences
Per cent indicating amongthe assignedratings.
"just righf" by beer
Based on the data securedfrom the experiment,the
brands Signifcant finding appearedto be that most beer drinkerscould
difference not identify "their"brandsof beer in a blind compari-
Characteristic AB CD EF GH IJ among brandsa
son test.
After-taste 59 52 57 55 55 No
Aroma 64 68 63 62 62 No
Bifferness 58 54 53 54 54 No Influenceof BrandIdentificationon OverallRatings
Body 53 58 60 53 57 No A number of importantfindingsarose out of com-
Carbonation 64 70 62 62 65 Only CD
Foam 62 66 63 59 66 No
parisonsof the datafrom the nude bottlephase with the
Lightness 68 63 69 64 69 No labeled bottle phase. The overall ratingsfor all of the
Strength 50 51 56 50 53 No brands increased considerablywith brand identifica-
Sweetness 64 61 59 62 66 No tions. However, there was also much variationin the
a At the .05 level.
amountof increaseregisteredamongthe variousbrands.
Source: Carling BrewingCompany
And when beer drinkerswere categorizedaccordingto
the brandmostfrequentlydrunk,they consistentlyrated
"their"beer higherthan comparisonbeers in this posi-
CouldDrinkersIdentify"Their"Brands? tive identificationtaste test. Also, therewas muchvaria-
The labeled test clearly indicatedthat beer drinkers tion in the amountsof increase-some brandsreceived
would assign "their"brands superiorratings and, ac- much higher ratings (i.e., overall ratings) from their
cordingly, it was assumed that if participantscould regularusers,than did other brandsfrom their regular
identify"their"brandsin the blind test that they would users. The differencesin the ratings were assumedto
respondto them with superiorratings.The generalrat- be due to the presenceof labels-the only alteredcon-
ings in the nude bottle test, by branddrunkmost often, ditionsof the experiment.
indicated that none of the brand groups rated the The data that gave rise to the several statements
taste of "their"brandbeer superiorover all of the other about the effects of brand identificationare examined
beers (see Table 3). For example,regulardrinkersof in more detail below. In the blind test, none of the five
brandAB, indicatedvia theirratingsthat they preferred brands received overall ratings that were sufficiently
"their"brandover EF and CD, but they gave virtually differentfrom all of the others to be consideredstatis-
similar ratings to brandsIJ and GH as they gave to tically significant.However,in the labeled test the dif-
their own brand.Drinkersof the other brandsdid not ferences in all but two of the overall ratingswere sig-
rate "their"brandsas favorablyin the blindcomparison nificant(the ratingsassignedto brandsEF and IJ were
tests as did AB drinkers..Drinkersof brand EF rated relatively the same). Looking at some of the other
beer CD significantlyabove "their" brand. Users of figures, brand GH was rated significantlyhigher than
all of the other brandsand CD was rated higher than
Table3 all brandsbut GH. Other differencesthat were judged
USERS LOYALTYTO "THEIR"BRAND (BLIND TEST) statisticallysignificantcan be noted in Table 4. And as
can be seen in this table, all five brandsin the labeled
Taste test ratings Own brand test were rated significantlyhigher than the same
by brand rated rated significantly brands in the blind test. Remember, these were the
Branddrunk higher than same brandsof beer used in the nude test, but in the
most often AB CD EF GH IJ all others"
67.0 62.4*
labeled test the participantscould clearly identify each
AB 57.7* 65.0 65.8 No beer brand.
CD 64.9 65.6 65.4 63.2 63.9 No
EF 68.8 74.5* 65.0 62.5 61.4 No The loyaltyof the participantstoward"their"brands
GH 55.4 59.2 68.7* 60.0 71.4* No increased when positive brand identificationwas pos-
IJ 68.4 60.5* 69.2 62.0 65.6 No sible (see Table 5). All of the labeled ratingsassigned
SAt the .05 level.
by regularuserswere significantlyhigherthan the blind
*Brands significantly different from user's own brand.
test ratings.In the blind test, participantsindicated,at
Source: Carling BrewingCompany best, very little ability to pick "their"beers and set
them off with relativelyhigh overall ratings. For ex-
IJ rated all of the comparisonbrands except CD as ample, the regulardrinkersof brand CD in the blind
equals and CD was rated as poorertasting.Drinkersof test awardedall of the brands about the same overall

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 OF BEERBRANDIDENTIFICATION
INFLUENCE ON TASTEPERCEPTION 39

Table4 zero value, the participantstended to rate all of the

TASTETEST-BLINDVS. LABELED
COMPARISON beers as not having enough aroma, body, foam, and
(OVERALLRATINGS) strength.All but one of the beers were rated on bitter-
ness as "toomuch,"and accordingly,not sweet enough.
Significant In the labeled ratings, "aroma"was greatly improved
difference
between as was "body,""foam,"and "strength."However, the
blind and ratings on "bitterness"and "sweetness"remainedvir-
Beer brand Blind test Labeled test labeled testf'
tuallythe same as recordedin the nude test.
AB 65.0 70.6 Yes
CD 64.1 72.9 Yes
EF 63.3 67.8 Yes CONCLUSIONS
GH 63.4 76.9 Yes
IJ 63.3 67.0 Yes Participants,in general,did not appearto be able to
discern the taste differencesamong the various beer
Significant brands, but apparentlylabels, and their associations,
differences
betweenbrands None Yesb did influencetheir evaluations.In other words, product
distinctionsor differences,in the minds of the partici-
a
At the .05 level. pants, arose primarilythrough their receptivenessto
b All brandswere significantlydifferentfrom all othersat the .05 the variousfirms'marketingeffortsratherthan through
level except EFand IJ relativeto each other.
Source:CarlingBrewingCompany. perceivedphysical product differences.Such a finding
suggestedthat the physicalproductdifferenceshad little
rating. However, in the labeled test, the CD drinkers to do with the variousbrands'relativesuccessor failure
awardedtheir beer brandan overall ratingof 83.6, an in the market (assumingthe variousphysicalproducts
18 point increaseover the blind test rating.This change had been relativelyconstant). Furthermore,this elim-
was sufficientlyabove their overall ratingsof all com- ination of the productvariablefocused attentionon the
parisonbrandsto be statisticallysignificant. variousfirms'marketingefforts,and, more specifically,
The gains in ratings were not uniform from one on the resultingbrandimages.
group to another.In the labeled test, brandsGH, CD, This experimentalso has helped the Companymeas-
and EF picked up more sizablegains than did AB and ure and rank its brand image relative to competitive
IJ. Comparisonof the data in Table 5 with that in brand images and has offered base comparisonmarks
Table 3 will indicate other importantrating changes for similarexperiments,both in the same and othermar-
from the blindto the label test. kets at laterdates.Suchinformationhas helpedin Com-
pany evaluationand competitivemarketingefforts.And
to the extentthatproductimages,and theirchanges,are
Influenceof BrandIdentificationon Specified believed to be a result of advertising (i.e., as other
Characteristics variablescan be accountedfor or held to be homoge-
The labeled test also producedsome changesin rat- neous among the competitive firms), the ability of
ings of specifiedcharacteristicsof beer brands.In the firms'advertisingprogramsto influenceproductimages
blind test with the "just enough" category assigned a can be morethoroughlyexamined.

Table5
USERSLOYALTY
TO "THEIR"
BRAND(LABEL
TEST)

Taste test ratings by brand rated

Branddrunk Own brand rated Blind test ratings
most often AB CD EF GH
iJ significantly higher" for own brand
AB (77.3) 61.1 62.8 73.4 63.1 Yes (67.0)
CD 66.3 (83.6) 67.4 78.3 63.1 Yes (65.6)
EF 67.3 71.5 (82.3) 71.9 71.5 Yes (65.0)
GH 73.1 72.5 77.5 (80.0) 67.5 Onlyover IJ (60.0)
IJ 70.3 69.3 67.2 76.7 (73.5) OnlyoverEF (65.6)
I At
the .05 level.
Source:CarlingBrewingCompany.

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