Branding tips from the cola wars: If you want to win the hearts, minds and loyalty of customers, your brand must be able to pass the “taste test.”

When it comes to brand wars, few skirmishes enjoy the notoriety of the famed “cola wars” between Pepsi and Coca Cola and the campaign of blind taste tests conducted across the US by Pepsi in 1975.  An overwhelming majority of those who took the blind taste tests preferred Pepsi, a result that contradicts Coke’s historical #1 position when it comes to cola, begging the question: Could your brand pass a taste test challenge against its competitors?

Although Pepsi claimed to win the taste tests, the cola brand that had, and continues to enjoy being the stated preference for Americans is Coke, as revealed by Rasmussen Reports who found that 73% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Coca Cola in a study conducted in April 2012.

In fact, a closer look at the taste tests themselves revealed that the victory Pepsi claimed to exist seemed to disappear when participants were given larger servings of the two sodas, vs. the small cups Pepsi used in the original challenge. And more recently, Diet Coke has now surpassed Pepsi to become the No. 2 soda in America, leaving businessinsider.com to officially declare Coca Cola the winner of the cola wars.

Ideally, your small business brand could enjoy both being the stated preference and that chosen in side by side “taste tests” — meaning that a majority of your customers and prospects in your target markets have a positive image when it comes to your brand and given the opportunity to “sample” your brand, would also choose it over those of your competitors.  Make sense?

Here are a few key branding takeaways from the cola wars you can use to build a small business brand that is strong enough to pass a taste test when your brand goes head to head with competitors:

1.  Come up with a really good customer experience recipe, and protect it. 

Pepsi’s recipe is in the public domain, while Coke’s is locked up and guarded.  There should be aspects of your brand and customer experience that cannot be replicated or surpassed by competitors, if you want to have a strong brand.  If your customers can get essentially the same experience when buying from your competitors that they do when buying from you, there is nothing extraordinary about your brand recipe!

2.  Make sure that what you claim to be true about your brand stacks up when measured against the customer experience. 

Researchers who re-examined the famed 1975 Pepsi vs. Coke taste tests confirmed Pepsi’s results when they conducted similar taste tests with the same methodology.  However, when they gave cola taste testers larger samples of both colas, preferences flipped in Coke’s favor.  They concluded that when take in small doses, Pepsi’s sweeter flavor was an advantage, but when given larger samples, its sweeter taste was a liability.

The takeaway:  It’s not the first taste – or small dose of your brand that will win the minds, hearts and loyalty of customers, it’s the sum total of experiences and perceptions that exist in the minds of customers and prospects that will provide your brand with true competitive advantages.

3. Know your points of competitive advantage, and set yourself up for success. 

Here we will give the edge to Pepsi, whose marketing and research experts undoubtedly knew that conducting the public taste tests with smaller samples would put Pepsi on top, and created a marketing and public relations campaign designed to exploit this advantage to the fullest.  You must be able to identify the unique advantages in products, services or customer experience your business enjoys over competitors and leverage those selling points in your marketing and public relations campaigns.

4.  Providing the better value can help you differentiate and launch new products.

You may not know this, but when Pepsi entered the market they offered 2x the amount of Pepsi for the same price as Coke.  Though they transitioned their brand’s unique selling proposition from value to lifestyle in the 1950s, they maintained their position as the preferential product for value-minded consumers.  It’s possible, though, that by positioning their product as cheaper in the minds of consumers they may also have positioned their product as less desirable. Competing on price should always be done with caution as it may erode the perceived value of your services, products or brands in the minds of customers and prospects; but launching new products or services or positioning your brand as the better value can give your business a competitive advantage.

5.  Understand that customers and prospects taste more than the ‘soda’ every time they interact with you or any other aspect or representative of your brand.

Strong brands win because they build strong, positive brand perceptions.  When someone samples your brand by trying a product or service, they aren’t just comparing that particular product or service against those of competitors. They are also ‘tasting’ other brand factors such as reputation, word of mouth recommendations, price, value, packaging, merchandising, positioning and even the sensory experiences (smells, sounds, music, lighting, etc.) that accompany their experience with your brand at any given time.

Coke’s advantage as a brand has arisen and been maintained over time, to the extent that the Coca Cola brand is an American icon recognizable world-wide.  Though challenged, the strong brand perception they enjoy continues to provide marketing and branding lessons that small businesses can employ to build a stronger brand image and gain competitive advantages.

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