Pepsi Challenge
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The Pepsi Challenge has been an ongoing marketing promotion run by PepsiCo since 1975. It is also the name of a cross country ski race at Giant's Ridge Ski Area in Biwabik, Minnesota, an event sponsored by Pepsi.[1]
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[edit] Method
The challenge takes the form of a taste test. At malls, shopping centers and other public locations, a Pepsi representative sets up a table with two blank cups: one containing Pepsi and one with Coca-Cola. Shoppers are encouraged to taste both colas, and then select which drink they prefer. Then the representative reveals the two bottles so the taster can see whether they preferred Coke or Pepsi. The results of the test leaned toward a consensus that Pepsi was preferred by more Americans.[2]
In the early 1980s, Pepsi ran a contest which would hand out a large prize to anyone who could gather Pepsi bottle caps that spelled out "challenge". Each cap had a single letter beneath it. The letter "A" was the rarest, making it appropriately difficult to win the prize.
In 2001, ex-MTV VJ Ananda Lewis hosted that year's challenge.
[edit] Criticisms
In his book, Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell ascribes the success of Pepsi over Coca-Cola in these tests to being a result of the nature of "sip tests", which would fail to account for the cloying effect of excessive sweetness and glutamate, and a complementary (but counter-intuitive) long-term preference for an item – disregarding situations such as the Pepsi Challenge, in which it would consistently lose in blind sip-test comparisons. That is, a blind-sip test may belie that a less-sweet drink tastes better in the long run.
In his book Bad Habits, humorist Dave Barry describes the Pepsi Challenge as "Pepsi's ongoing misguided attempt to convince the general public that Coke and Pepsi are not the same thing, which of course they are."
Popular sources criticize the so-called Pepsi challenge for the methods used. Interestingly, when cola taste samples include labels of Coke or Pepsi the preference for Pepsi is reversed. Much of the difference in preference of Pepsi or Coca-Cola is accounted for by labels and not taste. When the preference in blind tests is compared to tests where cups are labeled with arbitrary labels (e.g., S or L) or brand names the ratings of preference change (Woolfolk, Castellan, & Brooks, 1983). Damage to portions of the brain that process emotion information eliminates this apparent brand loyalty effect of preference (Koenigs & Tranel, 2008). Despite criticism from individuals such as Dave Barry, Scientific findings do support a perceptible difference between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but not between Pepsi and RC Cola (Pronko & Herman, 1950).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Koenigs, M., Tranel, D. (2008). Prefrontal cortex damage abolishes brand-cued changes in cola preference. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3, 1-6. Pronko, N.H., Herman, D.T. (1950). Identification of cola beverages. IV. Postscript. Journal of Applied Psychology, 34, 68-69. Woolfolk, M.E., Castellan, W., & Brooks, C.I. (1983). Pepsi versus Coke: Labels, not tastes, prevail. Psychological Reports, 52, 185-186.
