Not long ago, Baylor University conducted a blind taste test between Coke and Pepsi. They took 100 people, gave them unlabeled samples of Coke and Pepsi and asked them to choose which one they preferred.

Interestingly, the participants in the study were split 50/50. Half the room chose Coke and half the room chose Pepsi.

A short while later, the researchers asked the same group to again choose which soft drink they liked better — only this time, the drinks had their labels on them. In other words, the participants knew when they were drinking Coke and when they were drinking Pepsi.

Amazingly, 80% of the participants said they preferred Coca-Cola.

Why would that happen? Why, when a blind study indicated that the room was split 50/50, would the same group of people choose Coke 80% of the time in a non-blind test?

The answer is, of course, that Coca-Cola is a more powerful brand than Pepsi. In fact, if you think of the words you most associate with Coke, you’d come up with things like Polar Bears, Mean Joe Green and Santa Clause. If you think of words you associate with Pepsi, you’d come up with things like Michael Jackson, Madonna and Britney Spears.

Coke = Santa Clause

Pepsi = Michael Jackson

Who do you think people are going to gravitate to? Santa Clause? Or Michael Jackson?

How This Story Relates to You

The story above illustrates a key point about marketing — consumers often choose products for reasons that even they are not totally aware of. For example, people don’t buy Porsches for the German engineering, they buy them because they make the owner feel young and sexy. But if you asked a new Porsche owner why they bought the car, “German Engineering” would come up 20 times more often than “Because it makes me feel sexy.”

Consumer behavior is an odd thing. But if you can wrap your mind around it, it can be a very powerful tool for you to use to grow your sales and revenue.

With that in mind, I’ve included a short, 60-second video below called “5 Consumer Behavior Secrets You Can Use to Grow Your Sales and Revenue.” It includes 5 different tips you can use to help you get your target market to buy more of your stuff.

And that’s what it’s all about, right?

Enjoy.

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Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.