Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

58 BRAND RELEVANCE
great majority of respondents chose the beer with the vinegar.
However, half the sample was told that the second choice consisted
of a beer with vinegar added; the vast majority then chose
the unadulterated beer and in fact were repulsed by the beer
with vinegar. So when one option was clearly not within the
scope of the product category it was rejected as unacceptable,
even though objectively it was superior.
The beer experiment of Dan Ariely and his colleagues had
a sequel. They sought to determine what would happen if they
told respondents that one of the beers had vinegar added after
they had tasted the beers and selected the vinegar - added beer
as the better of the two. 12 It turned out that the attitude toward
the vinegar - added beer did not change and, in fact, many volunteers,
when given a vinegar dropper, added vinegar to their
beers by choice.
One takeaway from the beer experiment is that the brand
that is defi ning a product category or subcategory should
make that defi nition clear so that a competitor ’ s fl aws are visible.
The customer should be motivated to avoid a competitor
brand because it is irrelevant. If the category or subcategory
defi nition is ambiguous and a customer ends up trying a competitor
’ s offering, the fl aws may not be as pivotal. Another
takeaway is that a brand trying to break into an emerging category
or subcategory should hide any potential fl aw until after
there is a trial experience, at which time its emergence will be
less damaging and could be an asset, just as vinegar in beer was
considered positive by those that preferred its taste.
Frames can affect the emotional experience, as a study of
Heineken and Coors showed. 13 The Heineken beer - drinking
experience was associated with a warm, approachable, social
group of upscale people. The experience of drinking a Heineken
in that type of setting created a warmth emotion quite different
from when Coors was placed in the same context because Coors
was framed very differently. The Coors beer - drinking experience
was associated with the outdoors and a campfi re setting and