> This is despite the fact that they are identical in both taste and colour.
The only way I could ever mistake Coca-Cola for Pepsi is if I were to completely lose my sense of taste. I'm quite surprised to encounter someone who considers them identical or interchangeable.
He's right, though, that I could change the supplier for airlines, browsers (or ChatGPT) and my world wouldn't be all that different. It would taste the same.
https://daily.jstor.org/the-coca-cola-wars-can-anybody-reall...
That's like drinking an unknown wine from a cheap plastic cup alone in an alley after a much too large breakfast, without any bottle label, price tag, companionship or comfortable context for proper tasting calibration!
Our senses really do cross over. Associations and history incontrovertibly shape our subjective experiences. Coke and Pepsi, in their naturally prominent can-habitats, taste very different.
My guess is those test ads were more interesting as stunts than as behavior changers.
As an aside, I don't think wine is necessarily the best comparison: the most recognizable brands of wine are often the least revered by connoisseurs . It's the experience of drinking wine from a glass bottle with a real cork out of a high quality wine glass in a classy setting that adds a lot to the flavor of wine. But which brand is relatively unimportant. That's not true for Coke where people's associations for "quality" are with the brand alone.
There is a fundamental difference in branding dynamics between markets that value novelty vs. predictability, and exclusivity vs. availability.
With the wine market varying across both those axes.
Then there is the consumption vs. collection aspect. Winos of all persuasions have individually varying degrees of immediate satisfaction, delayed-reward, and hoarding/treasuring instincts.
Not really a cola soda branding type market at all!
I'm quite sure I'd feel the same way on blind tests and I was assuming that most people have this keen sense when it comes to their favorite drink.
I've been commenting throughout the thread; forgot to say I used to work for Coke