Blindly yours….or Not??

For understanding more Ben & Jerry’s  and Häagen Dazs customers, we decided to run a blind test among some of them. Out of this test we want to analyze which brand is our customers’ favorite and  if their choice reflects  in the blind testing.

Procedure:

1.     We asked all the persons that did the blind testing, what is their favorite ice cream brand.

2.     We asked them to try both ice creams without telling them which was which brand. // Note: We used the Vanilla and cookie dough  flavor because it’s a flavor that is present in both ice-cream brands, so it would be easy to compare.

3.     The testers got to choose the brand they liked the most just by its taste.

We made the blind test in 20 volunteers. When we first asked them, before trying the ice-cream, they ALL said they prefer the Häagen Dazs Ice-cream rather than any other. Well, we decided to test their loyalty to the brand. Take a look at one of the results.

The results were a little unexpected. Out of 20 blind testers, 13 still preferred Häagen Dazs ice-cream. However, 7 of them fell in love with Ben & Jerry’s Flavor!!!  This means 7 persons changed their preference in brand (from Häagen Dazs to Ben & Jerrys) just by taste.

How to explain these results?? Why is it that even thought Ben & jerry’s flavor may be better to some people, still when asked, they would prefer Häagen Dazs?

For sure, our customers are more influenced  by Häagen Dazs branding strategy, which is a mind-share branding strategy. Häagen Dazs tries to imprint  on his brand several attributes like, prestige, luxury, romanticism (through his advertising campaign) and also sensuality.  This is a totally different strategy from Ben & Jerry’s who goes out to the market with a cultural branding strategy, meaning the company has a complete story and culture for the brand and lets its customers to identify with it. For Ben & Jerry’s the strategy is transparency, simplicity, being “down to earth” and using this Back to the Land concept that is the base of their ideology.   As you see, two very opposite strategies.

What we can conclude out of this is, that is not only favor that matters to customers. Not at all, it is more than that. What matters is that the customer can identify himself with the values that the brand is exposing to the market. In this case our sample market is very much identified with the luxury, and prestige Häagen Dazs promotes than with the simple and free spirited values of Ben & Jerry’s.  So…. Love you blindly??? Maybe not…