Synthetic Consumer LabSynthetic Consumer LabTry the demo
Article — 2 min read

Analyzing Brand Perception in LLMs

Evaluating how biased LLMs are towards brands and how consistent their answers are.

Research Questions

  1. To what extent do LLMs show bias towards specific brands?
  2. Which metrics can be used to measure this bias?
  3. How can an appropriate brand comparison test be designed?
  4. What results emerge when these metrics are applied across different LLMs and brands?

Results

  • All LLMs showed consistent (transitive) brand preferences, producing the ordering Apple > Samsung > Huawei.
  • ChatGPT-4 was the most decisive model, whereas Gemma produced the most uncertain responses.
  • ChatGPT models displayed a strong positive bias towards Apple and Samsung, while Gemma showed a weaker positive bias and higher uncertainty.
  • The methodology can be applied not only to brands but also to a wide range of human-centred concepts.

Findings

  • Preference Dimension:

    • All models demonstrated logical consistency; the aggregate preference ordering was: Apple > Samsung > Huawei
  • Sentiment Dimension:

    • Gemma was more consistent but exhibited lower bias.
    • ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 showed a strong positive bias towards Apple and Samsung (e.g. a 93.6% positive response rate for Apple).
    • Responses about Huawei differed between models.
  • Consistency Metrics:

    • ChatGPT models: low entropy, high decisiveness.
    • Gemma: entropy levels 4–5× higher, indicating greater uncertainty.
    • Results broadly agreed across question formats; Gemma showed the largest deviations.

Scores

  • LLM Models: 5
  • Synthetic Data: 1
  • Method: 5
  • Speed: 2
  • Ethics: 1
  • Accuracy: 4
  • Demographics: 0

If you would like to explore this research in more detail, click here to read the full paper.

Read the full paper ← All articles