Imperial Blue: Wins on the Shelf, Loses on Merit
A 25-prompt whisky scan found Imperial Blue ranking ahead of Blenders Pride whenever it appears, yet returning zero mentions across all ten recommendation and trust-related questions.
Rank is not the weakness
Imperial Blue's average position of 1.86 beats Blenders Pride's 2.08, the category's second-largest brand by scanned appearances.
Royal Stag owns the category default
Royal Stag appears in 14 of 25 prompts at an average position of 1.36, with 10 positive mentions against Imperial Blue's one.
Every single win is a shelf or price question
All seven of Imperial Blue's prompt wins fall under brand discovery, availability, or price; not one is a recommendation, an award, or a trust question.
No Imperial Blue source is ever cited
Zero of 101 total citations come from tilind.com or any Tilaknagar-owned property, versus 17 citations sourced from rival distillers' own domains.
Scan run on ChatGPT only, 14 August 2026, one response per prompt across 25 mass-market whisky prompts. Brandy and single-malt prompts were excluded since Imperial Blue does not compete in either segment.
Imperial Blue is one of five real scans in this study
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