The Coffee Stain Study: A Lesson In Brand Experience

The Coffee Stain study.

One of my favorite stories in marketing is the Coffee Stain Study that was conducted by Braniff Airlines years and years ago when they were still a major airline. They had several brand new airplanes and they brought future passengers on to experience them. They asked the passengers to rate the company on related areas like quality of service, safety, food quality, time arrivals and departures, all from just looking at the equipment and sitting on the plane. The passengers would pull down the tray tables, look at the vents, and they would rate the whole experience from just from what they could see from their seat.

Interestingly enough, they brought one group in to experience a perfectly clean plane and had them rate the airline. They then brought in the next group but before they came in, the airline  went to every other row and put a nice coffee stain on the inside of the tray table. Nothing else changed.

Then came the next group, and as they learned about all the features of this new plane and explored everything – all the marks consistently across the board from service, food quality, on-time arrival, to quality of safety were lower in the group that had the coffee stain on the tray table.

Something as small as a coffee stain changed people’s perceptions. Learning about this is  when I really came to realize that everything we do, communicates. We can do all these things right but if somebody picks up the phone, calls a company and has a really bad experience – all the marketing and all the effort really is for nothing.

Everything we do communicates the quality of our brand and our position. It makes us either true to what we’re saying or a false business. All the little things add up and, in this case, it was the coffee stain that that made the difference.

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