My mom made me take cod liver oil growing up.
I hated it.
I got it straight out of a bottle, so no gel capsule barrier for me.
Ewwwwness.
But then there are brands out there that position themselves specifically to be gross.
Take Buckley’s for instance. Buckley’s is a Canadian cough syrup. And their tagline is – “It tastes awful. And it works.”
And that works.
Buckley’s went from a relatively low market share of 2% back in 1987 to a #1 position with a market share of 16% — ahead of brands like Tylenol, Benylin and Advil. By taking an unconventional approach, Buckley occupied a very clear mindspace very distinct from other cough syrup brands. It perhaps also signals that all of the effort has gone towards product efficacy, not on taste. Or kinda like the now iconic Craigslist that nobody’s been able to unseat.
And why does that work on us?
It seems that our perception on the food has a strong influence on how we think things should taste. Consumers often have the expectation that healthy food should taste worse. In a product labelling study, researchers discovered that adding “soy” as an ingredient made consumers believe a product would taste gritter and have a strong after taste, yet, the labelling the product with soy was necessary for the perception of health benefits. This translates to other things too beyond food, and probably has a little bit to do with some expectation confirmation bias. We expect things to be a certain way, and data that reinforces that worldview will resonate more with us. Medicine works. Most medicine is gross. Buckleys tastes gross = it must work!
So think about how you might leverage that to your advantage. Or, if your product goes against conventional expectations, how you might fight it. (Pepsi Taste Challenge, anyone?)
Thanks to my friend Mike Buckley, no relation, for the stats on Buckleys 🙂
