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What brands do you feel you have a personal attachment to?

Pink Jazz

Pink Jazz

Well-Known Member
I previously did a thread about brand loyalty, but if you feel you have a personal attachment to specific brands, which ones do you think they would be?

Here is my list:
If you feel you have a personal attachment to specific brands, which ones?
Here is my list:
  • Boeing (airplanes)
  • Amazon (shopping)
  • IZOD (clothing)
  • New Flyer (transit buses)
  • Moen (plumbing fixtures)
  • Samsung (cell phones)
  • HP (laptops)
  • Fulton Homes (Arizona homebuilder)
 
Zero.

I always buy what I judge to be the best value, most fit for purpose, tastiest, prettiest or whatever at the time. It's not possible in the modern commercial climate for any company to consistently provide the best for an individual's needs in any field, unless one has practically limitless funds. There will always be competitors which will seem more attractive depending on one's circumstances at the time of purchasing. If one falls on hard times, quality and "brand loyalty" will be sacrificed for price & choice. It's the very lifeblood of capitalism.
 
Lands End - for outerwear, anyway. I recently bought a Lands End jacket to replace two other Lands End coats I had outgrown. I needed a new one since a cheaper jacket I had bought from a different brand, had been torn in a way difficult to repair.

Lands End jackets last forever. I gave away the two outgrown coats to a charity for homeless people. Must have owned them at least 15 years, and still as good as new.
 
None, really.

Too much time watching the gaming industry has given me a sort of inherent loathing of any large corporation. But also, I've learned much from my father & stepmother on this subject.

For any corporation, the true customer is the shareholders... not the consumers. That's a lesson I have learned, and one that I wish more people could learn. Even if one of them is making some good products, I dont trust them any further than I could throw the planet Jupiter. They'd happily throw you into a giant blender if they thought it could give them a few extra pennies. Apple is one of my favorite examples. There was a time when they put out some darned good stuff. But when the switch to the dark side hit, it hit FAST and HARD. They didnt even hesitate... because they were never good guys to begin with. Even a device you already bought from them that STARTED OUT good often turns bad, becoming corrupted as they alter it remotely. Even though you already own the device. They can give you bad products without having to sell new ones to you. Bloody amazing.

Brand loyalty does not benefit the consumer... it is a concept that exists to benefit the corporation (and usually is pushed by the corporation for that exact reason).


When it comes to buying things, I ignore the brands and only focus on that individual product. And I'm VERY careful about it. Even though I'm an impulse buyer, I'm still like that.
 
Anyone curious about the phenomenon of brand loyalty would do well to read the wonderful book "The Space Merchants" which as well as being very entertaining is about as explicit a treatise on the way corporations exploit the loyalties of their customers as any ever written. As true today as when it was written in the early 50s.

The Space Merchants - Wikipedia
 
To get my little stab at corporate America, l like to support the little green companies, innovative companies that make something that covers several needs, companies that donate to charity that l value as worthwhile. But my income sometimes forces me into discount stores also.
 
Autistamatic said:
Anyone curious about the phenomenon of brand loyalty would do well to read the wonderful book "The Space Merchants" which as well as being very entertaining is about as explicit a treatise on the way corporations exploit the loyalties of their customers as any ever written. As true today as when it was written in the early 50s.

The Space Merchants - Wikipedia
Click to expand...

Aye, the "exploiting" part is the bit that I think is most important to understand, yet also the bit that most people are least likely to understand by far.

For instance, corporations LOVE to use brand loyalty to essentially build a free army. Apple is a freaking terrible group, but because they've cultivated brand loyalty, their customers, despite getting constantly screwed (which they often wont notice), will very fiercely defend any bad practice that Apple pulls. I see it in the gaming industry too. Arguements about which brand is better happen for a reason. Corporations spend silly amounts of money and resources just learning how to manipulate the tribalistic instincts that people have. Yet another form of psychological manipulation.

Heck, with the gaming industry again, there has recently been one rather infamous video clip that was leaked from this screwball presentation that this guy gave. It wasnt about how to make better products or how to better serve consumers. It was about how to make kids feel bad about not buying into in-game monetization. No, seriously. The whole idea was to exploit FOMO (fear of missing out), but also to exploit the tendency of people to ostracize those that dont do the same things they do. Some kid didnt buy stupid character skins in Fortnite? Other kids, who all DID buy those, will call them names and exclude them from their gaming group or whatever... and that might get the laughed-at kid to pester his parents for money to buy those things. Other similar things focus around concepts like exploiting people with addiction issues to create permanent, constant spenders who cannot control themselves, and will spend even when they really cannot afford to. They call these people "whales". Yes, really. And there are some *bad* things that have resulted from all this crap. Those though are a topic for another day.

And it sure aint just the gaming industry that does this. That's how bad it all is.
 
Chevy, Carrhart,wrangler, old school craftsman tool, benchmade knives. Stetson hats, redwing boots That’s all I can think of now
 
I choose brands based on reliability and good track record where it counts.

Used to be one of those kids myself who (for example) had to have the best kicks on the block for some reason, before realizing how little a difference in usefulness there was between a $30 pair of shoes versus a $200 pair of over-glorified sneakers. I find that ridiculous now, more so when it's literally a matter of life or death.
 
I have no brand loyalty whatsoever, I buy what is affordable, good value for money, convenient or comfortable. Companies create brand loyalty through expensive marketing campaigns, the cost of which is inevitable passed on to the consumer, or the workers or suppliers in terms of low labour costs or ecomomies of scale. I don't watch or look at adverts, don't watch much TV or read magazines or newspapers, so have very little exposure or influence from marketing hype by leading brands. In fact, the fact that an item is hyped is to me a red flag to avoid the product, it actaully puts me off buying rather than encouraging me. When choosing a product, particularly an expensive one like a smartphone, I will do so by looking at its properties and price, comparing it to similar products, and then make a informed decision.

However, I might stick to one particular brand if I have tried it in the past and been satisfied, or I might be familiar with the product and prefer the familiar over the unfamiliar. But that has little to do with brand loyalty.
 
- Vizio
- Chevrolet
- Wrangler
- Pepsi (Only because Mountain Dew isn't its own brand like it rightfully should be.)
- Microsoft
 
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