Latte, with sticker to cover lid hole, Tokyo

I can’t read what the green sticker says, but perhaps it’s to prevent spillage or being burned by hot steam. Maybe it’s for sanitation, to keep the drink sealed until you are ready to drink it?

One use case for a “to go” cup is to take the drink from the counter and consume it immediately. But if you are shopping for others to drink later, or it’s too hot to drink later, how to manage the drink during that transition where it’s in your possession but not being consumed? The sticker lives in that ill-defined period of time.

Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows of the early Louis Cheskin work, a recent Stanford study established that the more wine costs, the more people enjoy it, regardless of how it tastes.

Expectations of quality trigger activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that registers pleasure. This happens even though the part of our brain that interprets taste is not affected. While many studies have looked at how marketing affects behavior, this is the first to show that it has a direct effect on the brain.
…
“We have known for a long time that people’s perceptions are affected by marketing, but now we know that the brain itself is modulated by price,” said Baba Shiv, an associate professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

When we worked with a wine brand recently, we sought to understand the complete wine “usage” process, from planning, through shopping, to storage, to opening, to serving and drinking. We looked specifically at people who were interested in lower-priced wines and most of them were limited in their knowledge and/or experience.

In other categories when the customer is new and is presented with enormous product choice (the amount of wine choice dwarfs most other categories I can think of) we might feel sympathetic for the learning/selection/usage learning curve they would face; with wine people spoke very enthusiastically about the journey. Each trial experience involved drinking wine…something they liked to do! A social, tasty, and rewarding experience. Even a wine they “didn’t care for” (the typical critique) wasn’t a failure, because it still carried all the symbolic meaning.

The marketers were hampered by a limiting view of their customers; the market had been sliced into ridiculously narrow price points and this inevtiably drove discussions of people characterized exclusively within those $3 slots (as in, “I’m a $7.99 to $10.99 drinker”). While our client no doubt had cash register data to support their segmentation, it was completely at odds with how people saw themselves. They purchased across a much broader price range, and their primary concern was their own knowledge and accumulated experience. We were given a great opportunity to offer this different view and illustrate some of the unmet opportunities this presented.

Jolt has relaunched with new packaging and new flavors

• Cherry Bomb
• Cola
• Red
• Ultra
• Blue

Of course. As soon as I blog about Inca Kola I see someone with a can at Porto’s Bakery in Glendale, CA. At 8:30 in the morning. Hmm.

Yesterday I was at a meeting at CCA, and we found a few leftover cans of Inca Kola (Wikipedia). I had never seen it before. I can’t abide caffeine so I didn’t try it, but I did take one home since it was pretty cool looking. Who knew? It’s a hugely popular cola in Peru!

via Reuters

Coca-Cola will launch a coffee-infused soft drink called Coca-Cola Blak in various markets around the world in 2006.

The new drink, a combination of Coca-Cola Classic and coffee extracts, will be first launched in France in January before being rolled out in the United States and other markets during 2006.

A Coke spokesperson said Coca-Cola Blak will be a mid-calorie drink, similar to Coca-Cola C2, which was launched in April 2004 and contains half the sugar, calories and carbohydrates of regular colas. The formula for the new beverage is expected to vary based on local tastes.

Analysts have said one of the keys to the company’s future is capturing more consumers who have moved away from sugary soft drinks to diet versions, or to healthier low- or no-calorie beverages.

I’m very cynical. Buy this as soon as you can find it, because it’ll become a collector’s item very quickly. Seems like Coke “innovates” new products a little too quickly, but can’t make them stick. Trying to extend the Coke brand seems like a force play that doesn’t have anything real behind it. It is COKE! You must LOVE it! You must DRINK it! Bleccgh.

The Beerbelly – warm beer for jerks.
[via MeFi]

The super-premium taste of a Cinnabon cinnamon roll blended into a coffee latte.

Also, Liquid Cereal.

One of my favorite things to track down, foodwise, on a return trip to Canada, are milk drinks that are flavored like chocolate bars. They are amazing; they capture the exact taste of a specific chocolate bar in a completely different form factor. From a solid to a liquid, with the same mix of tastes. Last trip we tried the Rolo version.

It was as incredible as every other one I’ve tried. It tasted like a Rolo, but it was a liquid. I can’t stop repeating the superlatives and proclaiming the sensorial wonder of it all, sorry.

So it was cool to see that here in the US we’ve got a similar product available now.

Milky Way and Three Musketeers. We bought both but have only tried the Milky Way. It’s good, but not stunning. It has the flavor components of Milky Way, but they don’t replicate the bar experience.

I am hopeful to see this category of product here in the US, though. Maybe we’ll get more of ’em, especially if they can figure out how to get it right.