22: The Pepsi Challenge
The "Pepsi Challenge" was a promotional campaign in which a stand would be set up in a pedestrian area (primarily shopping malls) and passers-by would taste Pepsi and Coke in unmarked glasses - the point of which was to convince Coca-Cola drinkers that they actually preferred the taste of Pepsi. The experiment was first done in the 1970s and has been repeated multiple times since.
(EN: It's been suggested that this "study" was not entirely scientific - but my sense is that it's foolish to expect it would be. It was an advertising campaign, not a scientific experiment, so it's only natural the advertiser would skew the results and present only examples that favored their product.)
Read Montague conducted he same experiment using neuroimaging equipment. It was a small test group (67 subjects) and the results were about 50/50 in terms of taste preference, but he was more interested in observing differences in the brain. He found that:
- A blind taste test resulted in higher activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region associated to feelings of reward.
- When told what brand they were drinking, the brain activity shifted to the lateral prefrontal cortex, a region associated with cognitive powers, and the hippocampus, an area related to memory
What this suggests is that Pepsi does "taste" better, in terms of the sensory reaction of flavor and its association to reward; but the preference for Coke pertains more to the memories and impressions of the brand.
The author concedes that Montague's inquiry was focused: he did not randomly measure brain activity to see what happened, but began with a hypothesis about what areas of the brain should react. This does not invalidate his results, but does limit the results to contrasting specific areas of the brain, rather than observing what other regions may be engaged.
It's also noted that, in the experiment in which a brand was named before the subject tasted it, as that additional sense-data and memories were used. In addition to taste, subjects had the name of the brand - which invokes their memory of everything they know about it and every experience in which the brand was involved.
In effect, when consumers make a buying decision, it is not based solely upon the inherent qualities of a product or brand, but based on their entire experience of the brand, which includes many things that one might suggest do not matter: the memories and experience of a soft drink are more influential than its actual taste.
This meshes with the author's theories of perception: that the gestalt of a brand consists of more than its functional properties. Our memories, particularly emotional ones, involve an array of sensations and experiences that influence out perception. Without knowing what brand we are experiencing, we are limited to immediate sense-data, but when the brand is known we bring to bear the entire gestalt in determining how we feel about the brand, and this skews our present perception.
About Read Montague
Montague is a researcher in computational neuroscience, a field that studies information processing by the brain. Researchers in this field are generally interested in finding the way in which the brain should work in order to be most efficient - and the results of their research seem to suggest that in most instances, the brain is nearly perfect in its operations.
In mechanical terms, the human body is highly efficient: a human being sitting comfortably consumes about 100 watts of energy - about the same as standard light bulb. This 100 watts controls literally everything: pulse, respiration, digesting, mental function, and a myriad of other processes. It is reckoned that the brain, during periods of consciousness, consumes about a fifth of this energy.
The use of emotional data contributes to that efficiency: people seek what "feels good" in a vague and general sense rather than investing time and energy in a deliberate consideration of data. From a perspective of efficiency, it's far preferable to do so.
The Contribution Of Other Disciplines
The author maintains that neuroscience has contributed to marketing "at the macro level," by convincing marketers of the importance of emotion in creating attention and setting a background for brand decisions.
However, at the "micro level," it hasn't done much - we have the ability to measure levels of brain activity as people experience stimuli, such as an advertisement or actual interaction with a product.
As such, it's evident that neuroscience on its own is not equipped to fully comprehend how the brain and our mental software function. It still remains rooted in the premise that any activity in the brain is good activity, and more activity is better than less.
Biology and psychology are still necessary to interpret that activity, and the design and results of neuroscience experiments still rest upon a theoretical interpretation, borrowed from other disciplines.
Montague On Culture
The author provides a bit more detail about Montague's current work, which seems to have turned from individual behavior to cultural, specifically in terms of researching the feelings of trust and regret that underlie the formation of cultures: you must trust others in order to cooperate with them, and when cooperation results in failure, your regret leads you to dissociate from them.
In addition to measuring the sense of regret in general, he is currently contrasting the emotional reaction of Chinese versus American test subjects, the results of which are still pending, but early indications seem to indicate that cultural influences alter the reaction to stimuli.
The author is glad of this, as his own consideration of feelings (chapter 16) consider the influence of personality and culture, and his own firm has offices in 49 countries and is also considering the impact of culture.