The experiments

In today's lecture we were all asked to get into groups and carry out a perception experiment. The first groups experiment was based on chocolate. They had three different types of chocolate bars present at the front of the class on separate sheets on paper named 1, 2, 3 without their packaging so we wasn't influenced by their brand. The group wanted the class to taste all three chocolate bars and asked us which one we preferred, I personally preferred number 2. After the experiment was finished the group reveled that bar 1 was Tesco Value chocolate, bar 2 was Tesco medium and bar 3 was Tesco finest. however even though I preferred Tesco medium chocolate is was reveled that the majority of the class voted for Tesco finest, this proved that even without the packaging people still prefer the finer things in life :).



The second experiment that was held was with my group we decided to base our experiment on cookies. We had three different brands of cookies these were Maryland own brand, Tesco medium and Tesco value. We removed all packaging and laid out the three different branded cookies onto separate sheets of paper and asked the class to see if they could tell the difference and identify each brand. On the first sheet we placed Tesco medium brand cookies, the second sheet had Maryland own brand cookies and the final sheet Tesco value cookies were placed. A few people participated with our experiment and it turned out that most of them preferred Tesco medium brand cookie rather than the leading brand Maryland cookies.


The third experiment that was held in the class was based on two different types of biscuits, one was McVities digestives and Tesco's own brand digestives. They presented their experiment the same way everyone else did how I found that experiment wasn't a success as most people chose the McVities biscuits as their brand was stamped on the biscuit and this did influence their decision on which biscuit they preferred.



The fourth and final experiment was based on Coke-a-cola, Pepsi and Pepsi Max. Not many people participated on this experiment however, the people who did take part could automatically tell which brand was which as they purchase and drink the brands on a daily bases. I personally thought that they should of used two main brands and one supermarket brand to see if they could tell which drink wouldn't be the popular brands.


Soooooo........
In theory you would think that the most expensive market leading brand would be the product that all the taste testers would of preferred as it is a much more quality brand and more expensive, you would assume that the more you pay for a specific food the better it would taste. However, this was not the case as most of the taste testers for the chocolate and cookies experiment chose the supermarket brand rather the market leading brand. This proves that you don't always have to buy high quality goods to feel satisfied.