Think about how powerful these connections make a product/brand. All five senses speak to pleasure receptors and build strong connections.
This article’s central point is taste. Consumers tend to abandon brands when the product’s taste changes. “New Formula!” written on the package may work for dish soap, but it can turn away consumers loyal to a beverage or food brand. This loyalty is created over years, and to the consumer, changing the flavor feels like a betrayal. The failure of the New Coke back in the 80s is a case in point.
The attachment to the brand may happen during an emotionally charged moment. Say, the kiss on one’s first love, with whom they were sharing a bag of Doritos. Forever and ever, when eating Doritos, they will be transported to that magical moment of the Doritos-flavored first kiss. The binding is not only to the tongue (no pun intended), but most importantly, to the heart.
Nevertheless, at some point in the product’s life cycle, the manufacturer decides to change the formula, to simplify, “modernize”, or lower the costs. Inevitably, the taste will also change, and even if it is done without fanfare, consumers cannot be fooled: their brain and heart are no longer satisfied.
Allow me to share a personal story about Coke. As an infant, I suffered from belly aches and cried like crazy in my mother’s lap. Someone suggested that she should try Coca-Cola. Just put it in the nursing bottle instead of the powdered milk. It worked wonders and I was forever hooked (no, Coke did not contain cocaine at that point).
Long story short, I’ve been drinking Coke for more than half a century. I traveled to many countries and drank Coca-Cola in all of them. I remember a lunch in Paris at the French company where I worked. For me, instead of wine like everyone else, Cocá-Colá. A small Coke bottle costs about 7.00 euros in France, more expensive than many wines. This probably didn’t help my career much.
To me, Coke’s taste is pretty much the same everywhere. The secret formula, kept in a giant safe in the company’s headquarters in Atlanta (yes, yes, I made a pilgrimage there), remains untouched.
No marketing professional can ignore the importance of affective memory, and remember that it does not involve just flavor: it can be the packaging (some swear Heinz ketchup tastes better in the glass bottle), the colors (the EZ-Squirt Purple ketchup was a fiasco), the logo (Tropicana orange juice tasted worse when they dropped the orange-with-a-straw logo), the texture and consistency (Gummy Bears), the shape (the Coca-Cola bottle appeared even on the cans), and the name of the product (Eskimo Pie is not the same since it was rebranded Edy’s Pie).
To me, Coca-Cola equals love, motherly love. Every sip of a Coke reminds me that Mom loves me.