Predictably Irrational

While reading the chapter “Predictably Irrational,” I found the experiments and outcomes quite interesting. It is amazing how expectations can have such a profound impact on preferences. However, I don’t feel like this is a huge surprise.

I think the primary lesson from this chapter is that brand image is more often than not strong enough to either improve or detract from the likeability of a product. Like the chapter noted with the Coke and Pepsi experiment, Coke received a better critique when the subjects were shown the Coke symbol. Because people tend to associate a positive image with the Coke brand, subjects enjoyed the beverage more than Pepsi when seeing the red swirls. However, there wasn’t much of a difference between the two products when put up to a blind taste test.

I think another underlying lesson is that stereotypes and biases exist everywhere and are unavoidable. The numerous experiments proved this. There is always a preconceived notion about a product or a brand or just about anything, and this notion affects the likeliness of the product or brand. There is no way around this; it is just a fact of life.

This information can be very valuable to gaining insights and creating valuable experiences for our customers. If we know our customers value something in particular, we can associate whatever that may be with our product. Based on the experiments in this chapter, our customers are likely to carry over these positive feelings to our product.

Ariely provides quite a few examples throughout the chapter, but the main one is vinegar-laced beer. He added vinegar to one beer and left the other untainted then let his subjects taste each and decide which one was better. When given as a blind taste test, most people chose the vinegar-laced beer. However, when informed beforehand that vinegar was added to the beer, most chose the regular beer. This is because most people associate negative feelings with mixing vinegar and beer since it is not a normal combination. Additionally, when the subjects were told to taste each beer before being told that one had vinegar, their responses were similar to the blind taste-test: most chose the beer with the vinegar.

It’s amazing how different the reactions were when either being informed of the presence of vinegar before or after the tasting. This is undoubtedly because of expectations. In one instance, the subjects had an expectation of the vinegar in the beer tasting bad, and the other instance no expectations existed to alter the outcome. They were told about the vinegar afterward, but because they were already able to make their own decision about the taste of the beer, this did not alter the answer they gave.

A real life example of this concept exists with Apple. I feel like Apple hasn’t been nearly as prominent as it is today until maybe five years ago when the iPod became a big deal. They managed to reshape the idea of an mp3 player into a product no one could effectively compete against. They continued to create new products and become a well-known and highly respectable company. When they came out with the iPhone, it seems like everyone swarmed to buy one and didn’t even think twice about blowing $600 on a phone. If Apple had come out with this product five years ago before gaining such a strong reputation I highly doubt the iPhone would be as well known and as widely used as it currently is.