On how much we’re prepared to pay for a product being partly determined by what we compare it to (beer versus wine)

πŸ’Ž On how much we’re prepared to pay for a product being partly determined by what we compare it to (beer versus wine)

I ran an experiment among my colleagues using King Cobra, a little known variant of Cobra lager. It’s a strong Indian beer, with an ABV of 7.5%, and it comes in a 750ml serving, the same size as a wine bottle.

A little subterfuge was required. I told my colleagues that we needed to run some tastings for a client. I organised two separate tastings of the beer alongside half a dozen other drinks. The participants rated the taste of the drinks on a scale from one to ten and said how much they’d be prepared to pay for each one in a supermarket.

The twist was that in each tasting Cobra was served alongside a different selection of drinks: in the first case bottled beers; in the second wines. The accompanying drinks had a significant effect on the amount people were prepared to pay for Cobra. When it was accompanied by bottled beers they offered Β£3.75, but when it was served with a selection of wines that rose, by 28%, to Β£4.80.

Excerpt from: The Choice Factory: 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy by Richard Shotton

HT: @rshotton

Facebook Comments

Product Geek?

Join over 5,000 product geeks and get one email every Monday containing the best excerpts I've read over the previous week.

See some of what you're missing...