When automakers get ready to bring out a new car, they’ll frequently get all the competing models from other brands together and bring in some more-or-less randomly selected members of the public to compare them. They don’t tell the people who’s paying for the exercise, and they don’t show the brand names on the cars - at least not at first.

They have the subjects look over each of the cars, its price, and its specifications. Then they ask the subjects to rank the cars in order of preference - which would you most like to have in your driveway? It’s a blind test, so the automaker gets a good sense of whether their car is desirable compared to the competition.

Then they unveil the brand badges on the cars and ask the subjects to rank them again. That tells the automaker how their brand reputation affects people’s perception of their product.