Sorry about the FUBAR’d coding on the previous post. D’oh! :smack:
I’m all about brand “loyalty” but I don’t buy stuff just to show off to other people or try to impress people. My ego doesn’t require me to spend my hard earned money on “name brand” stuff just to try to impress other people. I do wear name brand things and buy name brand things that I’ve found to be reliable/dependable (my Reeboks and our Phillips electronics) but that’s just brand loyalty.
I have a friend who’s all about name brands. When we go out somewhere he always has to point out that he’s wearing his “Tommy pants,” or “Tommy shirt.” He bought a new “brand name” couch, two end tables, a coffee table, and two wing-back chairs for his front room and he spent about $6,000 for all of it… he could’ve gone to a number of furniture stores and had the exact same thing for about $4k less!! He also had them make special envelope pillows that cost him about $100+ each and look like the $15 pillows you get at Target. His prescription eyeglasses cost him about $600… but they’re Ralph Lauren frames. :rolleyes:
There are some brands of food I buy because I’m fond of the way they taste, but most of my “brand loyalty” applies negatively – there are brands of product I will not buy, for one reason or another.
*I have had remarkably rotten luck with General Electric products, and therefore will avoid buying them when acceptable substitutes are available. They make peachy lightbulbs, but I have had no end of nonsense with their appliances and electronics.
*I am not fond of low-priced Ford sedans, due to their bad habit of developing transmission problems a few years after I buy them. I understand they make great trucks, but I’ve never owned a Ford truck, and am unlikely to consider buying one.
*There are LOTS of internet services I will not subscribe to or purchase due to general suppressed rage at their advertising techniques. Any company that hijacks my browser and/or puts a little mobile popup on my screen that blocks the stuff I came there to read and makes me read the &%$# popup in order to find the clickspot to get rid of it is risking the loss of my business forever unless they’re offering an INCREDIBLY good deal.
One can wear designer clothing without having the designer name prominently displayed. I do it almost everyday.
I’m loyal to designer clothing because they’re better looking, better fitting, better made and just plain overall better than the alternative. I don’t always shell out top dollar either. Between bluefly.com, Off 5th, Filene’s Basement, Century 21, Nordstrom sales and sometimes Marshalls/T J Maxx, I can stock my wardrobe with designer pieces without necessarily paying designer prices.
I’m also pretty loyal to European cars. I like the way they look and drive.
My sunglasses are Paul Smith and cost me a few hundred dollars. There are no markings on the outside of the frame indicating they’re Paul Smith. There’s just no way to tell they’re Paul Smith frames. I bought them because I like them.
My tastes are my own personal preferences and have nothing to do with fads, keeping up with The Jones or having the designer label inside my clothing being seen by others.
Understanding brand images and how they work is very important to me, since it’s my job. Of course, the more I know about how those images are created (and how much of that image is created by me, in some cases), the less effect it has on my actual purchases. Brand makes a difference only when I know a particular company makes a better quality product, not just because I want to show off a label.
Pretty much the same as the above posters - brand loyalty, but not branding per se.
I wear Hawaiian shirts almost exclusively, and there is one company that makes the best in the world. No logo, but they are quality. Certain foods have brands that differ markedly from the generics. But for things like cleaning products, etc. it doesn’t matter. I will pay for quality, but not for ego.
Clothing in general is very unimportant to me so I buy whatever I find that’s cheap with nothing on the front and back (I hate wearing designs on my shirts other than a lines or something).
My GF on the other hand MUST have GUESS? clothing or other name brand stuff. It’s a minor issue between us (but then again, I get away with buying DVDs 
).
With stuff likes cars, I only care about quality over brand. I drive a Toyota Matrix. I don’t care so much for Domestics only because of some bad history with them.
With big end electonics I don’t find any brand special. I won’t get the very low end stuff (no names) but it doesn’t mean I’ll jump on a Sony.
With computers, I pick and choose each item based on reviews and specs (price being the 3rd consideration).
I do own a pair of $200 oakley sunglasses though…but only because they were the best I could get and look very nice
I’m referring to brand names with the clothes you may wear, the vehicle you may drive, yadda, yadda. How important is it for you to wear name-brand clothes (in their own right) and/or to be seen by others wearing name brand clothes?
I don’t give a rats butt what other people think of the clothes I wear. I try to but clothes that do not have a “brand label” on them because they don’t pay me to wear the clothes. I loath the idea of being a mobile billboard for clothing companies.
Does the make and model of the vehicle you drive have greater importance than its reliability, its safety features and/or its potential resale value?
With cars, I try to pick what is a good quality, reliable car with good gas milage. I just bought a new car, a Honda Civic, because it was reasonalbly priced out of the array of cars I was considering.
***Do you buy/use sunglasses to make it easier in bright sun and/or protect your eyes against harmful UV, or just to be part of your crowd and be recognized, at $200.00 a pair?***The ssunglasses I have are RayBan. Not because I want brand recognition, but because they are high quality lenses that offer excellent eye protection. Here in the desert with all of the sun and high UV index I feel it is omportant to wear the highest quality glasses possible. If K-mart brand was the highest quality, I would wear those.
***Is being part of a fad so important to your psyche that common sense and practicality takes second best, if at all? ** *
I hate fads. I laugh at all of the fashion victims… those people that MUST have the “latest and greatest” of everything fashion. Speaking of this, there was a segment on out local news about women who were having “cosmetic” foot surgury :eek: so they could wear those narrow, pointy toed shoes (Jimmy Choo, Manholo Blanick). I say screw that, I try to wear comfy shoes, I dont want to have crippled feet when I am older.
Is wearing a JC Penney knockoff abhorant to you that it must be Ralph Loren or that LaCoste shirt with the alligator? I dont care where the clothes come from, as long as they fit. I buy Gap jeans, because they fit well and last as well as not having a brand label on the pocket or the back waist. I frequently wear Fossil brand t-shirts, mainly because my mom works for Fossil and I get them for super cheap (like 5 bucks) and they are not blatently advertising the company- they mostly have vintage like adverts on them.
Is your razor a brand-name using $12.95 for four replacement cartridges? FWIW, mine is brand name razor using ten for $2.50 cartridges. (And yes, those razor cartridges are identical to your name-brand, made in exactly the same factory by the exactly same company but carry a house-brand label.)
I use the store band disposables and use them til they start to look rusty the throw them out. But I do have an electric razor, a Norelco I think, that I use inbetween shaves with a blade.
Then again, I do have brand loyalty to certain food items. I will not compromise on mayo, soda, crisco etc… but I am always willing to try a store brand food and hey if it is just as good, I’ll buy that over the name brand food. Of course when the name brand is on sale for less than the store brand I get that.
Hmmm…I don’t hink I’ve ever owned any brand-name (Tommy, etc.) clothing. Always seemed silly to pay for the privilege of displaying someone else’s name on my ass.
I do, however, look for the “Made in USA” sticker, and I will pay extra for an American-made product.
I read no further than reply number one. Otto quoted a price of $15 for jeans - I bought two pairs from Lowes a few weeks ago for exactly that. The reference to whatever soda is cheap is also true for me - someone at work asked on Tuesday why I had a can of Pepsi Max rather than Diet Coke and the only reason was that Pepsi was cheaper the day I went to the supermarket.
I’m with everyone else who couldn’t be so shallow as to seek status by giving free advertising to megacorporations. I don’t own a stitch of clothing that has any words or designs on the visible portions. I wear a baseball cap often (right now, even), but you wouldn’t believe the trouble I had trying to find a black one that had no sports, commercial or other logo or picture on it!
I don’t drive a car and will not be buying one, so I have no preference there. The things in our home are the things we could afford at the time. They’re functional and didn’t cost much. There are certain food brands we will buy all the time, but that’s brand loyalty because we know the quality and flavor is consistently good. If I need to buy a piece of equipment that costs more than $100, I’ll look up reviews and opinions on the net, of various brands, compare the results and make a decision based on the best value for money. I do like Reebok shoes and Levis, but I also look as good in Wrangler black jeans that I got for $10 at some cheapo store.
There are some items that I would just not do without, but they’re not everyday items, they’re highly specialized. Stanton cartridges to put on my turntable, Gibson and Fender electric guitars, stuff like that.
My positon can be best summed up by Dung Beetle’s first post in this thread, and F.U. Shakespeare’s comment that he and I have passed into the age bracket where we are no longer courted by advertisers because we’re too experienced to be that gullible.
I think of “branding” as when a business farms out manufacturing, putting their name on something that someone else makes for them. For what it’s worth, I think of it purely as a cost cutting move and that a lot of value is lost when it is done. Sure, companies have always farmed out manufacturing, but it seems like a lot of sellers have gotten it in their heads that customers don’t look past the brand name when buying and have forgotten how the brand names were established in the first place.
That said, I buy based on brand name only when I can trust the brand. Case in point, Sears Craftsman used to be a good product line decades ago. The tools weren’t the best you could buy, but they were reliable and the cost didn’t break the bank. Nowadays, the stuff seems a lot cheaper and most of it seems like it was farmed out to the lowest bidder. I used to be able to relay on the brand, but I don’t anymore.
Personally, I think that brand names will become less trustworthy in the future as more sellers jump on the “branding” (what I described in the first paragraph) bandwagon.
I will not pay to cover my bod with some corporation’s logos advertising their merchandise. I see people covered in sports logos or whatever on the subway, and I want to scream at them, “Where are you in all that clutter?”
I will on occasion wear the logo of a cause I may support, but that’s different.
Ideally I would like to exhibit understated style. I don’t care who makes it as long as it is made well: good quality for the price, does what it is supposed to, no-one’s getting ripped off when it’s made, etc.
You are correct. I wasn’t thinking of brand loyalty. However, as many posts have offered the concept, comments of branding vs brand loyalty are quite appropriate. I, too, have some brand loyalty, with value for money and quality being the two major points.
I also agree with Mangetout in that I avoid some brands, again for lack of value for money and quality, questionable business practices, etc.
:eek:
I’ve never seen knock-off razor cartridges in my life. Where do you get these from? I’d eagerly switch to a cheaper, equivalent product.
I care about buying brand-name stuff only insofar as it’s for something that I know is well-made. Buying something because the brand is more important than its value is a totally alien concept.
I’m not a slave to brands, but there are a few that I sport primarily because I’ve had good experiences with them.
My sunglasses are Oakley. Not just any Oakley - XX Metals, at an awe-inspiring, stupid-expensive $300. I *HATE * paying that much (actually, I got them on eBay for $200, but that’s still too much!) but these are the only ones I’ve found that will stay on my head.
Hand tools are Craftsman or Snap-On. Power tools are primarily DeWalt, with a sprinkling of Porter-Cable.
For clothes, as F. U. said, I go for Levi 501s as I know I can walk into the store, find a pair or two of “X” size, grab them, head to the checkout and be done with it. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. I’m not allergic to shopping at TJ Maxx or Ross “Dress Like a Mess.” Or hardware stores.
I see people wearing a shirt that’s nothing more than an enormous Tommy PullMyFinger logo, and all I can think is “WHY?”
For technology, I can be fussy. At home, I feast my eyes on a Sony XBR Wega. Like the sunglasses, it was stupid expensive, but the image quality is stunning. With computers, I’m constantly getting asked “What should I get?” Not five minutes ago, I was being queried about monitors, and what’s good for someone with aging eyes who looks at a lot of architectural drawings on their PC. For folks wanting a dependable home PC to email their digital pictures to Grandma and poke around on the web, I aim them at Dell. For laptops, it’s IBM Thinkpads. If you want build a PC, I’ll advise Plextor optical drives and PC Power & Cooling power supplies and fans. Yes, these cost more, but I’ve never been bitten in the ass for buying or recommending them.
And like the good Master Wang-Ka, my experiences with GE is they make horrid small appliances, but their light bulbs are some of the best. Dependable refrigerators also. But woe to anyone buying a GE TV or clock-radio - it’s mind-boggling to think that the same company that makes clock-radios that stop waking you up after two months also makes MRI scanners and nuclear reactors.
If the brand name represents a certain quality I desire then yes I will get that brand becasue I desire that level of quality. But that’s as far as it goes. If a cheaper brand had better quality then I will get that instead.
rjung said:
I don’t always agree with you, rj, but on that I can.
As Dung Beetle noted, I don’t think most of these responses address what the OP was trying to capture. As with others, I don’t care that much, but will pay a little more for what I perceive to be best for me.
Most of my clothes come from Target, and I’ll be damned if I could name their house brands. But I will spend a little more elsewhere for all-cotton dress shirts. But not if they carry an external brand banner (with minor exceptions - I have a couple of Polo shirts because they do fit well - but I wish they didn’t have the little guy on a horse instead of a pocket).
Food and the like; sure, I have preferences, but I’ve never heard of anyone oohing over French Market coffee with chicory.
Then along comes the crossover area - the grey area. In 1987 the only car I’ve ever bought new - a 1981 Chevrolet Monte Carlo - was stolen. I’d been without a car note for awhile, and had planned on driving the thing into the ground. Now, I needed a new plan.
Borrowing from a friend’s thoughts, I decided to get a car that I knew to be well-engineered but a few years old so as to beat the better part of the depreciation curve. After much shopping around, BMW emerged as the likely best couple-or-so years old buy.
Finally I found one I could afford, and bought it. It treated me well, and BMWs have been my rides for 17 years. While I still have almost two years left on the warranty for the current one, I’m pretty sure I know what my next car will be when that warranty runs out.
Presently there arrived a dose of the reality my fairly non-materialistic soul had not anticipated. My then-secretary threw me a surprise BMW party, complete with a cake with a BMW logo. Gah! I was mortified. Well, internally. Externally I laughed and went along as well as I could.
Almost all of my life is conducted away from my car, so I can live with whatever it is people think about BMW drivers.[sup]*[/sup]
So soon thereafter, my Dad died. I didn’t inherit much - $22K (much needed as I’d started a business a couple of years earlier - all of it sent to contractors within a few days), a penknife and a watch. It’s a nice watch, a Cartier Santos. I didn’t start wearing it right away, as my Seiko quartz-electric actually kept better time. But, when the Seiko died I began wearing the Cartier (WTF - why spend money on a watch when you’ve got a good one?).
So you might meet me, tooling up in my 7-series Beemer, adorned in a Polo shirt and wearing a Cartier watch. Irrelevant to me, but if it makes some kind of impression on you, I’ll know immediately. I’ll know you’re looking and not listening,
I work with a woman who is smart, was a babe in her day, is extremely compassionate, likes me and does care about the maker’s mark. What can I say? She devotes attention to the designer labels, and she’s really a good person to know.
[sup]*[/sup][sub]I don’t really know how it works - these are high-tech cars, after all - but there seems to be some kind of high air pressure area in front of the grill that can be activated by the gas pedal that helps the motorist in front of you drive faster. It’s one of the things I enjoy the most about BMWs.[/sub]
In regards as to whether I’m concerned with what image a certain product brings to me, no, not very much.
However, there are some specific products that I won’t live without: Jif Creamy Peanut Butter, Diet Coke, and Lesueur Peas. All other products along these lines are inferior. Case closed. 