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 drinkers that tasted (drank) and
rated beer from nude bottles and from labeled bottles.

As a company tries to find the factors accounting for
strong and weak markets, typical consumer e:q)lana-
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 reversal coming
not by night but by market. The experiment presented
in this paper was also designed to give rough measure-
ments of the magnitude of the marketing infiuences.
Unidentified and then labeled botties of beer were de-
livered to homes of taste testing participants on suc-
cessive weeks. The drinkers' taste test ratings provided
the data for the study.
THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN^
The principal hypothesis subjected to testing through
experimentation was this: "Beer drinkers cannot distin-
guish among major brands of unlabeled beer either on
an overall basis or on selected characteristics." Beer
drinkers were identified as males who drank beer at
least three times a week.
The test group was composed of 326 drinkers who
were randomly selected, agreed to participate in the
study, and provided necessary classification data. Each
participant in the experiment was given a six-pack of
unlat^led beer, identified only by tags bearing the let-
ters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, or J. The labels had
been completely soaked off and the crowns had been
* Ralph Allison is director of market research for National
Distillera 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 Btisiness Administration at the State
University of Iowa.
' Tlie experimental design and the findings outlined are from
one ma^et area. However, similar experiments were con-
ducted and similar rults were obtaiiKd in several other
maikets.
wire brushed to remove all brand identification from
the 12-ounce deposit brown botties. Each six-pack
contained three brands of beer with individual botties
randomly placed in the pack so no one lettered tag
predominated in any one position.* There were six
different pairs placed among the 326 participants. An
effort was made to give each participant a six-pack
that contained the brand of beer he said he most often
drank. The groups and numbers were placed as follows:
Placed
Group 1 (AB, CD, EF) 53
Group 2 (AB, CD, U) 55
Group 3 (AB, CD, GH) 55
Group 4 (AB, EF, U) 55
Group 5 (AB, GH, U) 54
Group 6 (AB, EF, GH) 54
326
A and B represented one of the company's beer
brands; C and D represented one major regional beer
brand; and E and F were one other major brand of re-
gional beer. G and H were one national brand; and I
and J were the fifth well-known beer brand used in the
experiment. Among these five brands there were some
taste differences discernible to expert taste testers.
The lettered tags (one around the collar of each bot-
tie in the six-pack) carried a general rating scale from
" 1 " (poor) through "10" (eacellent) on the one side
and a list of nine specific characteristics on tte re-
verse side (see Exhibit #1). The specific characteris-
tics, which included after-taste, aroma, bitterness, body,
carbonation, foam, lightness, strength, and sweetness.
'Pretuting gave no eviitence of a ptHiticmal or letter bias;
i.e., for participants to drink or rtHto tte beer in any particular
alphabetical or q)atial d
INFLUENCE OF BRAND IDB>4TIFiCATION ON TASTE PERCEPTION 37

Exhibit I THE FINDINGS

RATING TAGS The experiment produced a number of useful find-
Front Side BaekSkla ings. More specifically, evidence was available to an-
swer these questions:
1. Could beer drinkers, in general, distinguish among
various beers in a blind test?
2. Could beer drinkers identify "their" brands in a
blind test?
3. What influence would brand identification have on
consumers' evaluations of various beer brands?
4. What influence would brand identification have on
consumers' evaluations of specified beer character-
( istics?

Taste Differences in a Blind Test

TEST BEER "F" man E B U THT BEST The data produced by the experiment indicated that
DESGimES [ACT CBMttCmBTlC the beer drinkers, as a group, could not distinguish the
Don't forget to give m yow
p
opinion his beer
aliout tha bee byy taste differences among the brands on an overall basis.
Tn kst Mt
placing a cross
cron Oq in the CfcHKllfUtic Mnt Table 1 contains the evidence on these ratings. Basi-
ONE block of Me Rating
Scale that best . _ .
your opinion about it.
AftvtBK nnD Table I
RATING SCALE
EXCELLENT
bin nnD BLIND OVERALL TASTE TESTALL PARTICIPANTS

n nnn Significantly
n Ml nnn Overall different from
n Beer brand rating other brands

n
CataHtiH nnn AB
CD
65.0
64.1
No
No
n nnD EF 63.3 No

D 1%MMS nnn GH
IJ
63.4
63.3
No
No
n nnD
n Stm{tk
At the .05 level.

D SwcelKSS D nn Source: Carling Brewing Company

VERY POOR
Don't forget to rate tiii* Don't forget to rate this
beer on the othi r side of
beer on the other tide of
this card.
thii card.
could each be rated as "too much," "just enough," or
"not enough." These nine specific ch^acteristics were
selected from a much larger field. Their selection was
based on both greater agreement on meaning among
beer drinkers and on the ability of beer drinkers, in
graeral, to identify and rate them.
One week after the distribution of the unlabeled
beer, the empties, nude except for the rating tags, were
picked up and new six-packs left behind. This time,
however, the botties were properly labeled with each
six-pack containing six diffraent brands of beer (the
san^ five brands plus a sixth brand that was added for
the labeled test). In addition, each deposit bottle was
tagged (as shown in Exhibit #1), but these tags were
identified by the letters K tiiroug^ P. A week after the
Kcond placement tlw empties and rating tags were
{Hcked 1^.
cally, there appeared to be no significant difference
among the various brands at the .05 level.
Beer drinkers when asked to rate the nine character-
istics listed in Table 2 as "not enough," "just enough,"
and "too much," indicated a difference that was signifi-
cant in "just enough" votes for one characteristic on
one beer (carbonation of brand CD). Other than the
one case, the reported differences among brands were
so minor as to be not significant. A second analysis of
the data, in which the "just enough" category was
treated as a neutral or a zero and the "too much" and
"not enough" positions as + 1 and 1 respectively, in
general, substantiated the percentage findings.' In ad-
dition, this analysis indicated that four of the charac-
teristicsaroma, body, foam, and strength^were
rated rather uniformly among the brands as "not
enough" and one characteristic^bitternessreceived
a clear "too much" rating. Based on the overall taste
test and the specified characteristics test, the condnsion
'This three-place neutral center scale is in need of further
testing and compariami with four- and five-position scales to
dstetmine the amonnt of bias it indnces.
 JOUM'^AL OF MAMSTING REKARCH, AUGUST 1964

was that beer drinkers could ru}t distinguish taste dif- brand GH must not have drunk the brand because they
ferences among the beer brands presented in unlabeled preferred its fiavorthey rated two of the four com-
botUes. parison brands as superior in fiavor and the otter two
as no less than equal to "their" brand. And based on
Table 2 tiie overall taste ratings, the regular drinkers of brand
BUND TASTE TESTSPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS CD could just as well have drunk any of the other com-
(All Participants) parison brandsthere were no significant differences
among the assigned ratings.
Per cent indicating
"Just right" b]f beer
Based on the data secured from the experiment, the
brand. Significant finding appeared to be that most beer drinkers could
difference not identify "their" brands of beer in a blind compari-
Choracterittic AB CD EF GH IJ offlong brands^
son test.
After-taste 59 52 57 55 55 No
Aroma 64 68 63 62 62 No Influence of Brand Identification on Overall Ratings
Bittemeu 58 54 53 54 54 No
Body 53 58 60 53 57 No A nimiber of important findings arose out of com-
Carbonation 64 70 62 62 65 Only C D parisons of the data from the nude bottle phase with the
Foam 62 66 63 59 66 No
63 69 64 69 No
labeled bottie phase. The overall ratings for all of the
Lightness 68
Strength 50 51 56 50 53 No brands increased considerably with brand identifica-
Sweetness 64 61 59 62 66 No tions. However, there was also much variation in the
amount of increase registered among the various brands.
' At the .05 level. And when beer drinkers were categorized according to
Source: Carling Brewing Company
the brand most frequentiy drunk, they consistently rated
"their" beer higher than comparison beers in this posi-
Could Drinkers Identify "Their" Brands? tive identification taste test. Also, there was much varia-
The labeled test clearly indicated that beer drinkers tion in the amounts of increasesome brands received
would assign "their" brands superior ratings and, ac- much higher ratings (i.e., overall ratings) from their
cordingly, it was assumed that if participants could regtilar users than did other brands from their regular
identify "their" brands in the blind test that they would users. The differences in the ratings were assumed to
respond to them with superior ratings. The general rat- be due to the presence of labelsthe only altered con-
ings in the nude bottie test, by brand drunk most often, ditions of the experiment.
indicated that none of the brand groups rated the The data that gave rise to the several statements
taste of "their" brand beer superior over all of the other about the effects of brand identification are examined
beers (see Table 3). For example, regular drinkers of in more detail below. In the blind test, none of the five
brand AB, indicated via their ratings that they preferred brands received overall ratings that were sufl&cientiy
"their" brand over EF and CD, but they gave virtually different from all of the others to be considered statis-
similar ratings to brands IJ and GH as they gave to tically significant. However, in the labeled test the dif-
their own brand. Drinkers of the other brands did not ferences in all but two of the overall ratings were sig-
rate "their" brands as favorably in the blind comparison nificant (the ratings assigned to brands EF and IJ were
tests as did AB drinkers. Drinkers of brand EF rated relatively the same). Looking at some of the other
beer CD significantiy above "their" brand. Users of figures, brand GH was rated significantly higher than
aJl of the other brands and CD was rated higher than
Table 3 all brands but GH. Other differences that were judged
USERS LOYALTY TO 'THEIR" BRAND (BLIND TEST)
statistically significant can be noted in Table 4. And as
can be seen in this table, all five brands in the labeled
Taste test ratings Own brand test were rated significantly higher than the same
by brand rated rated significantly brands in the blind test Remember, these were the
Brand drunk higher than
AB CD EF GH IJ
same brands of beer used in the nude test, but in the
ntOST wTSfl all others
labeled test the participants could clearly identify each
AB 67.0 62.4* 57.7* 6S.0 65.8 No beer brand.
CD 64.9 65.6 65.4 63J 63.9 No
EF 68J 74.5* 65.0 as 61.4 No
The loyalty of the participants toward "their" brands
GH 55.4 59.2 68.7* 60.0 71.4* No increased when positive brand identification was pos-
IJ 68.4 60.5* 69.2 62J) 65.6 No sible {see Table S). All of the labeled ratings assigned
by regular users were significantiy higher than the blind
A t t h e U } 5 level. test ratings. In the blind test, participants indkated, at
* Brands significantly different from user's own brand.
Seiffce: Carling Brewing Company
best, very littie ability to pick "their" beers and set
them c^ with relatively h i ^ overall ratings. For ex-
U rated all of the comparison Iwands esxpt CD as ample, the regular drinkers of brand CD in the blind
equals and CD -was rated as poorer tasting. Etinkers ol test awarded all of the brands about the same overall
 INFLUB4CE OF BKR BRAND IDBMTIFICATION ON TASTE PERCEPTION 39

Table 4 zero value, the participants tended to rate all of the

COMPARISON TASTE TESTBUND VS. LABELED beers as not having e n o i ^ aroma, body, foam, and
(OVERALL RATINGS) strength. All but one of the beers were rated on bitter-
ness as "too much," and accordingly, not sweet enough.
SigitiScant
dierence
In the labeled ratings, "aroma" was greatiy improved
between as was "body," "foam," and "strengtii." However, tiie
blind and ratings on "bitterness" and "sweetness" remained vir-
Beer brand Blind test Labeled test labeled tesf tually the same as recorded in the nude test.
AB 65.0 70.6 Yes
CD 64.1 72.9 Yes
EF 63.3 67J Yes CONCLUSIONS
GH 63.4 76.9 Yes Participants, in general, did not appear to be able to
IJ 63J 67.0 Yes
discern the taste differences among the various b ^ r
Significant
brands, but apparentiy labels, and their associations,
differences
between brands None Yes*
did infiuence their evaluations. In other words, product
distinctions or differences, in the minds of the partici-
A t the .05 level. pants, arose primarily through their receptiveness to
''All brands were significantly different from all others at the .05 the various firms' marketing efforts rather than through
level except EF and IJ relative to each other. perceived physical product differences. Such a finding
Source: Carling Brewing Company.
suggested that the physical product differences had littie
rating. However, in the labeled test, the CD drinkers to do with the various brands' relative success or failure
awarded their beer brand an overall rating of 83.6, an in the market (assuming the various physical products
18 point increase over the blind test rating. This change had been relatively constant). Furthermore, this elim-
was sufficientiy above their overall ratings of all com- ination of the product variable focused attention on the
parison brands to be statistically significant. various firms' marketing efforts, and, more specifically,
The gains in ratings were not uniform from one on theresultingbrand images.
group to another. In the labeled test, brands GH, CD, This experiment also has helped the Company meas-
and EF picked up more sizable gains than did AB and ure and rank its brand image relative to competitive
IJ. Comparison of the data in Table S with that in brand images and has offered base comparkon marks
Table 3 will indicate other important rating changes for similar experiments, both in the same and other mar-
from the blind to the label test. kets at later dates. Such infonnation has helped in Com-
pany evaluation and competitive marketing efforts. And
to the extent that product images, and their changes, are
Influeru:e of Brand Identification on Specified believed to be a result of advertising (i.e., as other
Characteristics variables can be accounted for or held to be homoge-
The labeled test also produced some changes in rat- neous among the competitive firms), the ability of
ings of specified characteristics of beer brands. In the firms' advertising programs to infiuence product images
blind test with the "just enough" category assigned a can be more thoroughly examined.

Table 5
USERS LOYALTY TO "THEIR" BRAND (LABEL TEST)

Tasfetest ratings by brand rated

Brand drunk Own brand rated Blind test ratings
mosioftee AB CD EF GH IJ significantly higher" for own broad

AB 61.1 62.8 73.4 63.1 Yes

CD U3 (83.6) 67.4 78.3 63.1 Yes (6S.6)
EF 67J 71.5 (82 J ) 71.9 71.6 Yes (65JO)
GH 73.1 72.5 77.5 (M.0) 67.5 Only over IJ (60.0)
U 70J 69J 67.2 76.7 (73.5) Only over EF (65.6)

Source; Carling Brewing Conraany.