Published Research
Brand > Taste. Every Time.
chose Coke over better-tasting Pepsi once brand was revealed
Signal
75%
The Study
Dr. Read Montague's landmark 2004 fMRI study at Baylor scanned 67 participants during blind and branded taste tests. Blind: slight Pepsi preference and the ventral putamen lit up for pure flavour. Branded: 75% switched to Coke as the medial prefrontal cortex, emotional memory, and cultural conditioning dominated the brain signal. Coke had spent decades building emotional neural pathways so deep that the brain literally overrode the tongue.
Myelin Sheets Insight
“Your brand's neural footprint is more powerful than your product's performance. What memory are you encoding?”
Research Details
- Tool
- fMRI
- Year
- 2004
- Market
- United States
Next Step
Translate this research into your own category and creative decisions.
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