Twilight of the Idols in the Market for Champagne: Dissonance or Consonance in Consumer Preferences?

Abstract

The paper reports on a series of results obtained from a champagne tasting experiment. People were asked to rank four different products according to their preferences, when faced successively with different sets of information: labels and disclosures, prices and then blind tasting. This experiment shows that for experience goods, there may be a dissonance in the behaviour of consumers, in the sense that they choose differently when they see the signals and when they experience the product. This dissonance suggests that better information is needed for rational consumers to discover their preferred product.