Growing up, I had a lot of issues with wearing t-shirts with brand logos on them. It’s not like they were paying me to do it, so why would I walk around like some human billboard. It raised a lot of questions as to why brand loyalty exists, and who does it benefit. Have you ever found yourself looking at a shelf of products and simply based on the name of the company, picked one product over another? That’s brand loyalty and recognition. It’s a huge thing in the world of advertising, and companies spend millions of dollars to try to gain that natural response from prospective shoppers.
You may be too young to remember the cola wars, with blind taste tests, this clever branding is likely the reason that most people in the world gained preference between the two brands. I personally prefer Pepsi over Coke, but I am clearly in the minority in the world. Look if I am being honest, I prefer RC Cola, but in today’s society, I might be better off admitting I am a cannibal than whisper that I prefer RC Cola in public.
Some people might also remember Bing’s weird brag that with blind searching people couldn’t tell the difference between them and Google, like an anti-brand campaign.
So let’s talk more about the benefits of the subject!
Benefit To The Brand
When customers have Brand Loyalty, they are more likely to buy that brand in stores, over other companies. It’s a built-in audience that will regularly buy your products.
This one isn’t too hard, it’s literally money. It all breaks down to profits for the company, and it’s why corporations pay large sums to marketing firms to find the best way to foster, and retain their customer’s brand loyalty and build brand recognition.
Benefit To The Consumer
When you follow a brand, you benefit from knowing who they are, what they produce, and a general threshold for its quality.
You look at a product on a shelf, and you know one of those products at least matches your ideals, or at the least doesn’t stomp on it. This can always change, but knowing that your mom used a certain brand, and you like it growing up, and pass down that uniformity to your children is a slight benefit of brand loyalty.
Sometimes it doesn’t always equal that, sometimes, you can be blind to other products, but having had it prior, you know what you are getting every time.
Pitfalls Of Brand Loyalty
One of the biggest problems with Brand Loyalty is that it can potentially foster toxic issues on both sides of the marketplace. Fans of the brand might end up getting a sub-par product because the corporation behind the brand is taking their following for granted.
A great example of a company milking a brand name is the Sony Vaio laptops. When they first released their laptops to the marketplace, people were excited to see what Sony would do with the devices. Sony had a strong name in the industry, having rocked cameras and televisions. Even more impressive, to the young crowds, they had fallen in love with Sony Playstations and were eager to see if they could change the industry of laptops as they did with gaming. What fans got were sub-par laptops that didn’t stand out or change the industry.
While the company found some success in their home country, that’s because Sony is still a huge brand there. Vaio did release some groundbreaking tech laptops down the line (like a laptop with a built-in professional camcorder), the damage was already done, and the consumers weren’t willing to try to give the company the benefit of the doubt. Now you can’t find a Sony Viao anywhere in the USA.
On the other end of the spectrum, being loyal to a brand following can force a company to be afraid to make changes to their company, for fear that they will upset their followers, and for smaller companies that could make or break them.
Community Through Brand Loyalty
Another brand that most people don’t view as such, is fandoms. There are large groups of community-based on fandoms. Think of the group of Star Wars fans, Star Trek fans, Marvel fans, DC fans, and many more! Brand loyalty can welcome you to a group, but it can also form more toxic groups within it. People take ownership of a brand, and if you lose yourself in believing the brand belongs to you, then you can really do harm to others with that belief.
It is true though, that real connections and long-lasting friendships can be formed over your love of a brand, as long as those involved are willing to keep it relaxed, and fun.
Final Thoughts
Brand loyalty is hard, it’s expensive, and it can be easily lost. As long as it’s not abused, or taken too far by the consumer, then there are many benefits for all.
With small local companies, you can get to know the people, but they are only in one place, and you can’t get their products if you move away from them. A major company that has done well to share their business and products with the audience creates a network of quality that will follow you where you go. While we all know Starbucks isn’t the best coffee in the world, they are not the worst, and they are uniform. You know with your brand knowledge of them that you can get the same cup of coffee in Los Angeles as you do in New York.
That’s the major benefit of brand loyalty or recognition, you know what you are getting. So don’t be too hesitant to wear your favorite brand on a t-shirt, hell you might even make a friend because of it.
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