Here’s a cardboard tag I found attached to the neck of a bottle of “Mystic Cliffs White Merlot”.
What caught my eye, even before the novel notion of white merlot, was the large “88” on the tag, which looks a lot like a Wine Spectator score.
You look a little closer and you see that “88 percent of consumers prefer…” Aha! They conducted a taste test and determined that the average shopping mall patron prefers it to…what?
Take another look: “88 percent of consumers prefer the color of White Merlot to White Zinfandel”.
Admit it: some days you’re ashamed to say you make your living in marketing.