It's an untold truth that with, like most shoppers, some who come to ours will buy with their eyes rather than experience. This is fine at the end of the day.. it means the beers they choose have done a great job with their marketing to get you to buy.. but does that beer fit the customer's bill? Do you trust the name that much? Do you like they brewery that much to say they'd never make a bad beer?
Is there a reason why I bought a beer from a well know Huddersfield brewery when there was eight other different breweries on tap last week in the pub? Even when I hadn't had the beer in question before..? I didn't even think about it, I saw the badge and went straight for it... It does make me wonder why sometimes.
What would sell more? A big champers-style cork and caged 75cl bottle, wrapped in paper and put in a wooden box, or the very same beer sold in a milk carton...? What if the milk carton (of which the beer tasted the same) costed a full £10 cheaper?? Customer behavior can be a fascinating thing.. I've heard on more than one occasion when I've pointed out a good beer; "I'm not buying from them again.. I had a really bad one last week." People can be very loyal when it comes to beer, but there will always be people who can be extremely fickle.
If style and design are such a powerful force behind selling beer how come one of the "top ten beers in the world" has no label... just a brown bottle... or is that a design in itself??
This variation of consumerism is a good thing for us mind.. With such a verity of products we can always be sure that we'll have something for everyone.
One last thing to think about though. Say there was a brewery you knew... It's quite a famous one, you all know it. Say they were going to have a complete re-brand and shake up in the brewery.. They were going to increase production and start selling to supermarkets. Let's say they were going to add this and that to make it taste exactly the same from the new mega-brewery. Propose I bought an old and new version of the beer and yes, they were identical in every aspect...
What if said beer looked like this?
What now? Would you still be loyal?