clientele as Easy Jesus). Their client, Christian Brothers, wanted
to know why, after years of being the dominant brand in the
category, it was losing market share to E & J. Their brandy
wasn’t more expensive. It wasn’t harder to find in the store.
And they weren’t being out-advertised (since there is very little
advertising at this end of the brandy segment). So, why were
they losing ground?
Cheskin set up a blind taste test with two hundred brandy
drinkers. The two brandies came out roughly the same. Cheskin
then decided to go a few steps further. “We went out and did
another test with two hundred different people,” explains
Darrel Rhea, another principal in the firm. “This time we told
people which glass was Christian Brothers and which glass was
E & J. Now you are having sensation transference from the
name, and this time Christian Brothers’ numbers are up.”
Clearly people had more positive associations with the name
Christian Brothers than with E & J. That only deepened the
mystery, because if Christian Brothers had a stronger brand,
why where they losing market share? “So, now we do another
two hundred people. This time the actual bottles of each brand
are in the background. We don’t ask about the packages, but
they are there. And what happens? Now we get a statistical