I often hear people make the following argument about certain competing pairs of consumer goods:
Brand X is great, and Brand Y sucks.
For example:
Pepsi vs. Coke
Chevy trucks vs. Ford trucks
Macs vs. PC’s/Windows
The Simpsons vs. Futurama
Unreal Tournament vs. Quake 3
Budwiser vs. Coors
Why do people get bent out of shape over such inconsequential issues?
Note, this is not indended to discuss these issues themselves, but rather why people get fired up about them.
The same reason HS/College sports have a “Rival” that the students are encouraged to hate. Marketing. 
I agree with Saint Zero. Advertisers get paid millions to convince stupid people that a product of a certain brand is better than an identical product from a competing brand. There are millions of consumers out there who never bother checking the facts about the products they buy, they just listen to advertising.
Except in the case of Macs vs PC’s/Windows. Macs are totally superior. 
I understand about marketing. Brand loyalty is one of the purposes of marketing. I even understand brand loyalty; people find something they like, so they stick with it.
What I don’t understand is why people care so much about choices that other people make when such choices have no effect on them.
Where I come from in the Mid-West, people take the brand of pickup truck you drive and your brand of lawnmower very seriously.
Unless you happen to work for Ford, my buying a Chevy has no effect on you whatsoever. It doesn’t mean one of us is wrong, it doesn’t mean that I think you made a poor choice or that I think there is something wrong with a Ford. My choice of a vehicle is in no way a comment upon anyone else, regardless of what they choose to drive. It just means that we have a difference in taste, different needs, or different priorities. I am not harming or insulting you in any way by my choice of vehicle.
Substitute Coke and Pepsi, PC and Mac, or any of the other examples I mentioned, and the same reasoning applies.
And why such black and white reasoning? I never hear someone say “Fords are a little better than Chevys” or “Chevys are nice, I just happen to like Fords better.” It’s almost always along the lines of “Chevy sucks, Fords are great!” I have seen sober men get into a fight over the Chevy vs. Ford issue.
A bumper sticker I saw today: “I’d rather push my Ford than drive a Chevy.” I do not understand this attitude.
I couldn’t agree more. It does some silly to be so loyal to a brand of thing.
I think the reason behind this is that humans seem to need to and like to create loyalty groups. By allying yourself with a group of like minded individuals you have a support group to reley on. It gets so that some people will conform with the group so that they will be accepted. This behaviour probably dates back to when the human animal was evolving and by having a group (ie tribe) to reley on you increased your chances of success. I quess those that conformed to what the majority or leaders of the group did, had a better chance of surviving and reproducing so the behavior was reinforced.
This is probably just one the thousands of strange human behaviors that remain from our evolution.
Feh, all you Pepsi swilling, Reebok wearing, Ford driving, Mac users are just jealous of us Coke/Nike/Chevy/PC folk.
Brand loyalty does not seem to be as strong now as it was 40-50 years ago. In the 1950s, families would polarize into opposing camps that damn near went to war with each other, over whether to drive a Ford or a Chevrolet. It was practically a religious issue. You could come from a “baptist” or “methodist” family in the same way, and to the same degree, as you could come from a “Ford” or “Chevy” family. Switching brands was practically grounds for being disinherited.
ITR champion wrote:
Hence, the popularity of herbal remedies. 
<Joel Robinson>
Has anybody seen the mouse to my Amiga?
</Joel Robinson>
A vast amont of product loyalty is the result of marketing but there was a time when competing products weren’t as completely homogenous as they are now. There weren’t as many true “clones” of successful and well designed products. Sometimes if you want quality you have to go for the real thing rather than a poor substitute… but not always.
I do competetive “cowboy” action shooting. We use originals and replicas of guns that were in use before 1900. I own three lever action rifles for that; a modern production USRAC/Winchester '94, a Japanese made Winchester '92 built by a licensee and an Italian made replica of a Winchester '73. Ironically the “real” Winchester is the least authentic and period correct for a host of reasons. The Japanese made rifle is significantly better with only a few small features that make it different from an original. The Italian copy is a near perfect copy of the original except for the inscriptions on the barrel and reciever. Makes it hard to decide which is the “real thing.”
The things that rule modern consumer culture don’t inspire a lot of brand loyalty in me.
To be fair, it’s not always just marketing at work. Take Macs vs. Windows, for example – just about every computer tech person I’ve talked to who maintains both types of computers has told me that Windows PCs are more troublesome to maintain than the Macs. Similarly, there is a tangible difference in quality and workmanship between a Toyota and a Hyundai, or a Sony VCR versus some no-name knockoff.
Sure, getting all agitated over Pepsi vs. Coke or Budweiser vs. Coors is rather silly – aside from minor differences in flavor, they’re fundamentally the same. But for other things (complex doohickies), there’s often some kernels of truth behind the differences.
What bothers me is when I am standing in the store looking at (for example) answering machines. I am staring at two machines with whose brand names I am unfamiliar, trying to talk myself into buying the more expensive one.
Somehow, I ASSUME that paying more will get me a better product.
Those are the moments I feel most stupid…
Keeper, that’s exactly what makes me hate modern technology even though I earn my living with it. Most modern consumer goods, particularly electronics, are paragons of planned obsolecense and disposability. You make a choice between price and features you were not aware you needed :rolleyes: and what sweatshop nation is printed on the “made in” sticker.
As we lose the connection to the generation that lived through the depression our sloth and wastefulness as consumers will get worse. I may tease my grandmother about washing out baggies and aluminum foil to use again but she’s never felt the need to buy a new stereo reciever because she doesn’t have digital Dolby surround sound in the present one. Possibly a bad example as grandma is completely deaf in one ear and doesn’t even own a stereo but you get my point…
“Why, back in the great depression, supplies were so scarce we could only use one square of toilet paper to wipe our butts when we went to the bathroom – and even then, we had to use both sides!”
I think you may have misunderstood my point. I understand why some people prefer Macs and others PC’s. What I don’t understand is the hostility towards people who choose differently. If you love your Mac, great. I find Windows suits my needs better. This does not mean we need to get into a fight about who is right and who is wrong, because there is no right or wrong here, it is just a matter of having different needs or different tastes. Yet it happens all the time, as is evidenced by the thread elsewhere in this forum.
As for comparisons between cars or electronics, the comparisons you made are price vs. quality, which is not what I was talking about. I was referring to things for which there are relatively small differences in quality. Toyota vs. Honda, or Sony VCR’s vs. Panasonic VCR’s would have been a better fit the type of comparison in the OP.
Padeye, it’s still a religion if you know where to look. In the rural midwest, walking into a bar wearing a “Case” baseball cap will be interpreted as a personal insult by some John Deere loyalists. As a teenager, I knew of two farmers who ended their friendship and would not let their children play together solely because one bought a new Farmall tractor instead of a John Deere.
Companies foster it, and not just by advertising. In three weeks, I’m getting my bachelor’s degree from a little tiny private women’s college in Atlanta, Coke capital of the world. Now, you can’t find Pepsi in Atlanta for trying, except at chains that sell only that - Pizza Hut, I believe, and maybe the Marriott. But Coke isn’t satisfied with their total market domination - not only do they have a licensing agreement here, so you can’t buy anything else on campus, but they give oodles and oodles of money to us. So my network connection was put in by Coke. And then, guess who my scholarship is from? So, yeah, I feel personally indebted to Coke. And when other people order Pepsi, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Because who the hell is going to fix my elevator if you drink Pepsi?!
Zsofia, I’m guessing I would be run out of Atlanta on a rail if I lived there. I am one of those heathenous scum that don’t like any form of cola. I drink root beer, fer cryin’ out loud. Is there any discrimination against non-cola-drinkers in Atlanta that you’ve noticed?
I think, to some extent, it’s because people don’t want to appear to have made a wrong decision (and they do want to appear to have made the right one). If you choose a PC and Macs are better, or if you choose a Chevy and Fords are better, it’s not just that you have a lesser product, it’s that you made a mistake. You were wrong, you were stupid, you were ignorant. Of course, it’s rarely so clear cut that one complex product is absolutely better than another, but by boosting up the product you have, you’re not just boosting that product, you’re boosting your judgement, your ability to evaluate between two similar products and come to a correct decision.
Personally, I’ve never experienced this sort of thing seriously with soft drinks or other minor choices, it’s always been with big purchases, things that cost a significant amount of money. Also, products that can be measured versus each other in a way that’s at least partially objective. You can’t really debate the merits of Coke vs. Pepsi; either a person likes one or they like the other, it’s purely a matter of taste. However, while there may be no exact answer to “what is better, a PC or a Mac?” there are objective facts (availability of software, benchmark results, etc.) that can be used in a debate. With that sort of thing people can argue and try to impress others with their knowledge (“Oh, you think a Mac is good? Have you seen the latest hardware benchmarks? The Mac chip just can’t compete.”).
For me it would be hard to feel superier to a Pepsi drinker just because I drink Coke (but maybe some people do), but with a product that requires some technical knowledge I think it becomes easier. I see it fairly often here at work. One co-worker in particular who uses PCs makes fun of people who uses Macs a lot due to their supposed technilogical incompetence. And on the internet I sometimes see the same attitude by users of Linux/Unix towards PC users. So I really do think that the desire to be right and lord it over people who were wrong plays a part.
Good lord, screw Macs and PCs, Coke and Pepsi.
My extreme brand loyalty is to Heinz ketchup.
Seriously. Any other Ketchup SUCKS and I will NOT buy it or eat it, even if it means I’m stuck without ketchup or i’m paying another two bucks.
It’s just something that gets engrained in your psyche. I’ve had heinz all my life and changing it is like changing my blood type.
jarbaby
Like JasonDean said, I think people just like to create communities based around what they have in common. If you think about it, even patriotism is a form of “brand loyalty.” What did Kurt Vonnegut call these–granfalloons?
Zsofia, go rent the movie The Coca-Cola Kid to get a hilarious take on the Coke corporate mentality.