RESEARCH
All researchA good brand makes you the easy choice.
In a 1990 study, 22 of 30 people picked the jar they knew, even when it held the worse one. It was their fifth pick, and they had tasted the first four.
chose the jar with the name they knew on their final pick, when it held the worse peanut butter.
HOYER AND BROWN, 1990 · 173 STUDENTSLIMIT · PEANUT BUTTER, FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS, 1990. ONE GROUP OF 30. NOT A B2B MARKET.The question.
A company whose product is ahead of how it looks tends to assume the better product wins once a buyer has tried it. So what happens when people choose between a name they know and something better under a name they do not? In 1990 two researchers swapped the contents of the jars to find out.
How we know.
Wayne Hoyer and Steven Brown ran a controlled experiment, published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 1990. 173 first-year students at a large university in the south-west of the United States chose from a shelf of three peanut butter brands, five times, and tasted each pick. One group saw a heavily advertised national brand beside two unknown ones. The other group saw three unknown brands. In one condition a single jar held a better peanut butter and two held a worse one, and two times in three the better one sat under an unknown name.
What it means.
This is not a measurement of a business market, and nobody buys a sensor the way they buy peanut butter. What it shows is the shortcut: a known name can beat a better product, even after people have had the chance to taste the difference. A funded company with strong technology and a name nobody recognises starts every comparison from the unknown jar.
The known jar won, whatever was inside it.
SHARE WHO CHOSE THE KNOWN JAR ON THEIR FINAL PICKHOYER AND BROWN, 1990. THE CONTENTS CHANGED. THE CHOICE BARELY DID. THE GROUPS ARE SMALL: 14, 47 AND 30 PEOPLE.
Three studies, one shortcut.
HOW OFTEN THE KNOWN NAME WONThe original experiment. It was their final pick, after tasting.
A replication in Australia. The pull of the known name held. The effect on finding the better product was not significant.
Laptops, phones, cameras, headphones and tennis racquets. Stated choices, not purchases.
Who ended up with the better peanut butter.
SHARE WHOSE FINAL PICK WAS THE BETTER PEANUT BUTTERHOYER AND BROWN, 1990. PICKING AT RANDOM WOULD FIND THE BETTER JAR 33 PERCENT OF THE TIME. THE THIRD ROW IS PART OF THE SECOND.
In depth.
THE LONG READWhat the 1990 experiment did.
Wayne Hoyer, then at the University of Texas at Austin, and Steven Brown, then at the University of Georgia, published the experiment in the Journal of Consumer Research in September 1990. They recruited 173 first-year students who had rarely or never bought peanut butter. Each student stood at a shelf of three brands, picked one, said why, and tasted it on a cracker. They did this five times. One group saw a heavily advertised national brand beside two brands from other regions that they had never heard of. The other group saw three unknown brands. Quality came from a blind taste test with 62 other people, who scored eight peanut butters out of five. The top scorer, at 4.09, became the better product. A generic brand, at 2.32, became the worse one. Then the researchers changed what was in the jars.
What they found.
On the first pick, before any tasting, 93.5 percent of the students with a known brand in front of them chose it. That is no surprise. The surprise is the last pick. Thirty students had a shelf where the better peanut butter sat in an unknown jar and the known jar held the worse one. On their fifth and final pick, after four tastings, 22 of them, 73 percent, chose the known jar. Six chose the jar with the better peanut butter. Where no brand was known, 26 of 44 ended on the better one, against 18 of 44 where a known brand stood on the shelf. Students with a known brand also tried fewer jars: 2.29 of the three on average, against 2.67. Hoyer and Brown concluded that brand awareness dominated the choice, and that people can pay for the shortcut when quality really differs.
Has anyone repeated it?
Yes, with mixed results. In 2000 Emma Macdonald and Byron Sharp published a replication in the Journal of Business Research, using orange cordial and 462 undergraduates at an Australian university. On the first pick, 85.5 percent chose the well-known brand, against 93.5 percent in the original. Students with a known brand decided faster, in 9.8 seconds against 15.1, and tried fewer brands. The part about quality held up less well. About a third of each group ended on the better cordial, and the difference was not significant. In 2013 Thoma and Williams, writing in Judgment and Decision Making, asked 62 people recruited at the University of East London which of two products they would be most likely to buy. When a famous brand carried one star and an unknown brand carried five, people still chose the famous one 65 percent of the time.
What the study does not show.
It does not show how companies buy. The subjects were first-year students in 1990, new to the product, choosing jars priced at $1.29 or $1.79. Only 30 people sat in the group behind the headline figure, and the group sizes printed in the paper do not fully agree with each other. Awareness was measured, not assigned: the researchers selected people who already knew the brand, so something else that travels with familiarity could be doing part of the work. The authors say this themselves, and note that they tested a single product category. Macdonald and Sharp add that the gap between 26 and 18 of 44 was not statistically significant at that sample size. Read the experiment as a clean demonstration of a human shortcut. It is not a measurement of any market, and not of yours.
What it means when the product is complex.
A business buyer is not a student with a cracker. But there is some evidence that the pull of a known name does not fade when the stakes rise. In 2011 Brown, Zablah, Bellenger and Johnston reported two studies of people who sit on business buying teams, 206 in a scenario study and 180 in a field survey, in the International Journal of Research in Marketing. Sensitivity to brand was highest when the purchase risk was low or high, and lowest in the middle. Their explanation for the high end is that a brand works as a way to reduce risk. What follows is our reading, not theirs. Think of booking dinner for your boss. For yourself, you might try the new place. For your boss, you pick the one you can explain. Your buyer is booking dinner for their boss, and a first order of new technology is rarely a small risk.
What to do about it.
You cannot argue a buyer out of a shortcut. You can become the name the shortcut lands on. As we see it, a good brand makes three things easy for the person deciding. Easy to understand: they get what you do in one sentence. Easy to trust: they can see real people and real proof. Easy to explain: they can defend the choice to their boss. None of the three is a finding from the studies above. They are how we read them. Test them on your own company. Could a buyer explain what you do in one sentence? Would they feel safe putting their name to choosing you? Could they defend it to their boss without you in the room? Three yeses and you are the easy choice. One no, and the name they already know often wins, even when yours is better.
What to do with it.
THREE THINGS A GOOD BRAND MAKES EASYBe easy to understand.
Say what you do in one sentence a buyer could repeat. If they cannot repeat it, they cannot pass it on.
Be easy to trust.
Show real people and real proof. In the 1990 study the known name won 22 times in 30 with the worse product inside.
Be easy to explain.
Give your buyer the sentence they will send their boss. The easier you are to explain, the easier you are to choose.
ONE QUESTION
Could your buyer defend choosing you to their boss, without you in the room?
Yes or no. If it is no, the name they already know often wins, even when yours is better.
Asked about this research.
NOT ANSWERED HERE?
tony@appart.giEVERY FIGURE HAS A SOURCE
Sources and limits.
- HOYER AND BROWN, 1990Wayne D. Hoyer and Steven P. Brown, Effects of Brand Awareness on Choice for a Common, Repeat-Purchase Product, Journal of Consumer Research, volume 17, issue 2, September 1990, pages 141 to 148, now published by Oxford University Press. Read in full.
- MACDONALD AND SHARP, 2000Emma K. Macdonald and Byron M. Sharp, Brand Awareness Effects on Consumer Decision Making for a Common, Repeat Purchase Product: A Replication, Journal of Business Research, volume 48, pages 5 to 15, Elsevier. Read in full.
- THOMA AND WILLIAMS, 2013V. Thoma and A. Williams, The devil you know: The effect of brand recognition and product ratings on consumer choice, Judgment and Decision Making, volume 8, issue 1, pages 34 to 44. Read in full.
- BROWN AND OTHERS, 2011Brian P. Brown, Alex R. Zablah, Danny N. Bellenger and Wesley J. Johnston, When do B2B brands influence the decision making of organizational buyers? An examination of the relationship between purchase risk and brand sensitivity, International Journal of Research in Marketing, volume 28, issue 3, pages 194 to 204. Abstract only.
- LIMITSThe 1990 experiment used first-year students, one consumer product and groups of 14 to 47 people, and the group sizes printed in the paper do not fully agree. Awareness was measured, not assigned. The replication supports the pull of the known name and only weakly supports the effect on quality. None of it measures a B2B market. The three things a good brand makes easy are the studio's reading, not a research finding.
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