What's funny is kind of the reverse is also true: when people were given the exact same cola but one was labeled Coke and the other Pepsi, not only did they say they preferred Coke, but fMRI brain scans should more prefrontal cortex activation for the Coke as well: https://medium.com/@marketingoal/the-pepsi-vs-cola-cola-expe... . That's the power of branding.
That blinded test isn't about telling the difference though, it's knowing which is which, a significantly harder thing to do without practice. And I don't know how many of the participants regularly drink any of the brands, which makes identification even harder.
Have you done a blind test before? A group of friends and I have done a blind test of around 10 coke brands before. The only ones you could reasonably tell apart were Pepsi and some dubious organic cokes. But of all the ones that actually try to replicate the coca cola flavour it was just pure guesswork on our side.
I did a blind taste test of Starry, Sprite, and 7-Up the other day. My wife was amused when I nailed all three. As a recovering fat guy, I’m a bit of a soft drink connoisseur (diet soda now!).
Unfortunately then the question became “well, which do you prefer?” And my answer was “I have no idea”.
According to researchers who actually ran blinded tests: https://daily.jstor.org/the-coca-cola-wars-can-anybody-reall...
What's funny is kind of the reverse is also true: when people were given the exact same cola but one was labeled Coke and the other Pepsi, not only did they say they preferred Coke, but fMRI brain scans should more prefrontal cortex activation for the Coke as well: https://medium.com/@marketingoal/the-pepsi-vs-cola-cola-expe... . That's the power of branding.