Higher prices boost pleasure

[tekeeladude-cl]

I just read the following article on Reuters and immediately thought of the similarities between cigar smokers and wine drinkers. While I do expect a higher priced cigar to be higher quality, I try to prevent the price from affecting my judgment of the taste and pleasure of the smoke, but it doesn't always work!

Let's hear your views on this article and how pricing affects your cigar purchases and expectations.


Higher wine prices boost drinking pleasure
Tue Jan 15 15:399 UTC 2008


By Clare Baldwin
STANFORD, California (Reuters) - The more wine costs, the more people enjoy it, regardless of how it tastes, a study by California researchers has found.
Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology found that because people expect wines that cost more to be of higher quality, they trick themselves into believing the wines provide a more pleasurable experience than less expensive ones.
Their study, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that 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.
The researchers said that when 20 adult test subjects sampled the same wine at different prices, they reported experiencing pleasure at significantly greater levels when told the wine cost more. At the same time, the part of the brain responsible for pleasure showed significant activity.
"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, and one of the authors of the study.
"Marketers are now going to think twice about reducing the price," Shiv said.
According to the study, if an experience is pleasurable, the brain will use it to help guide future choices. That conclusion has important implications for marketing that aims to influence perceptions of quality such as expert ratings, peer reviews, information about country of origin, store and brand names and repeated exposure to advertisements.
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Eric Walsh)

[dHUTCH]

i dont find that hard to believe......

[stlcards]

Yes, very believable.

I wonder if there's a significant difference between men and women.

[Dogwatch Dale-cl]

Thanks for posting that! I often find an inexpensive cigar will taste great, but someone who co-hosts with me will poo-poo it because "it's cheap and can't be made with good tobacco". To each his own, but I'm a big proponent that one can find $2 cigars as well as $14 cigars that taste great and fill all requirements of a great cigar experience. Granted, it takes more searching to find the good less expensive one, but they are out there.

I do expect a higher priced cigar to be more consistant in quality of construction, and I expect a higher priced cigar to exhibit more aged tobacco flavors. Those really are the two issues that SHOULD contribute most to the price of a cigar. However, since taste is a subjective and very personal thing, it's hard for me to realistically expect higher price to equate with better flavor for everybody.

[FoZzMaN-cl]

Agreed. Personally, I can think hundreds of beers I'd prefer to Heineken, but you see lots of folks drinking it because (a) it's expensive, and (b) someone told them it's the best.

[happy1]

I guess I'm to simple to be like that,usually if taste like crap...so it is.I always say if it walks like a duck,quacks like a duck,guess what it's a duck.

[tx_tuff]

I think for me a lot of the time its a 180. I tend to be disappointed when smoking a high dollar cigar. Because of the price I'm thinking this cigar should be one of the best I have ever smoke and most of the time it fars way short of that. But I'm talking about the $20 and higher priced stuff. In the $10 to $15 there is a lot of sticks that live up to the price for me (VSG, Anejo, some Pepins (Tats and others) and I enjoy the hell out of those!

[boomerd35]

I agree with Frank. If I enjoy a good moderatley priced cigar, I just enjoy the smoke thining that was a good cigar. With a higher priced cigar, I spend the entire smoke thinking, "Is this worth the price?" I hold it to a higher standard, so I think I enjoy it less.

[terrasco-cl]

True. I expect more of a higher priced cigar. When you spend a couple of bucks on a Famous 3000 or a Flor de Oliva and it is a really good cigar, it makes you expect so much more out of that $15 dollar cigar.

[Shelby07]

Well, smoking is all about pleasure. Now we know how to maximize it!

Didn't we just go thru this with bottled water??

[Rowdymon-cl]

One thing y'all haven't taken into account is 'giddy' is very close to happiness...

Lord knows I"ve been giddy more than once cause I just spent a boatload of money I didn't need to spend on something...

[sofaman]

Originally Posted by Rowdymon

One thing y'all haven't taken into account is 'giddy' is very close to happiness...

Lord knows I"ve been giddy more than once cause I just spent a boatload of money I didn't need to spend on something...

I get Giddy when I am in the state store and I see all the bottles of Boons farm and MD 20/20

[brianhewitt-cl]

Originally Posted by sofaman

I get Giddy when I am in the state store and I see all the bottles of Boons farm and MD 20/20

I get giddy when I pick up an over-priced smoke at half price on the devil site...

[JoeyBear]

Originally Posted by sofaman

I get Giddy when I am in the state store and I see all the bottles of Boons farm and MD 20/20

That's my boy!!! I love bargains. I feel an amazing Edge is 10x better than a mediocre GOF. As for Boone's, I couldn't have gotten through college without my daily "water bottle" in the boring ass classes Could buy a case of 12 bottles for $20

[cigar_joel-cl]

Some people would rather smoke expensive crap instead of an inexpensive treasue.....What ever floats there boat!!