Is branding unnecessary for expensive products?
Reviews and brand loyalty were the subject after I read Tveskov’s newsletter in 2011. I started thinking about how my own way of buying electronics had become less dependent on a familiar brand.
Reviews and brand loyalty in my own purchases
I used to stick to particular brands. It saved time: If I’d been happy with something before, I expected to be happy with the next purchase from the same company.
I didn’t want to research the whole market every time I needed to buy something. The brand became a shortcut to the quality I hoped for.
I started looking at the specific model
When I needed a TV, I looked at online reviews instead. I ended up with a brand I didn’t know particularly well because the specific model had received good reactions.
It made me ask whether others felt the same: Do friends’ experiences and reviews matter more when we can find them easily? Also read E-pusher about my experiences of online sales and marketing.
A familiar brand can also make a model that disappoints you. So I’d become more interested in the individual product than in the name alone.
I still thought brands had a role
I imagined branding would continue to matter, especially for small everyday purchases where you wouldn’t spend much time researching the options.
For bigger purchases, I thought other people’s experiences would carry more weight. That was my assessment of developments in 2011, not a survey of all consumers.
The example in the video involving a forthcoming tablet and its ratings is hypothetical. It doesn’t describe an actual test or recommend current models.
Also read my later thought about product design rather than advertising.
A run and Tveskov’s thought about branding
Sorry I look like shit. I’ve just been out for a run, and that’s often when ideas come to me. When I got home, I read Tveskov’s newsletter. Among other things, he wrote that he thought branding would die.
My first reaction was: Oh, shut up, I’ve heard that a hundred times. But his example still got me thinking. He’d bought an HTC phone on recommendations from good friends. He didn’t know who the CEO was or where the company came from. He’d bought it because of other people’s experiences.
I knew recommendations mattered, but when I thought it through, I could see how much my own way of buying had changed.
B&O, Tuborg, Sony Ericsson and Audi saved me time
I used to be a bit of a B&O fanatic. I bought the brand because I trusted it. If I only needed a new stereo every five years, I couldn’t be bothered to watch the market between purchases or ask loads of people what was good.
I chose something from B&O because the name meant good quality to me. In the same way, I could choose Tuborg when I wanted a beer. I bought Sony Ericsson phones for years and drove Audi. I stuck to certain brands without thinking much more about it.
Why was I loyal? Because it saved me time. Once I’d found a brand that stood for something I liked, I expected to be satisfied next time too.
The brand as a shortcut to trust
In the video, I use the image of a brand on a cow to explain what I mean by branding. My account is that people once knew their local producer, while goods transported far away required another way of showing where they came from.
A recognisable brand could then become something you trusted even without knowing the producer personally. If the product was good last time, you expected it to be good this time too. That’s the function I’m interested in in the story: The brand makes the choice easier.
I bought a huge TV from a brand I barely knew
I’d just bought a huge motherfucker of a TV from a brand whose name I could barely remember. I didn’t properly know the company, its background or its quality from previous purchases. So why didn’t I just choose Sony or another familiar name?
Because the TV had good online ratings. I visited a couple of consumer sites and saw what people recommended. Then I looked at the stars on Amazon and perhaps a couple of other places.
It gave me a picture of what others thought of that particular model right then. I didn’t need a relationship with the brand going back years to want to buy the product.
I’d been disappointed by some things the old brands made. I thought B&O had lost its edge, and I also thought Sony had made some blunders. Among other things, I asked why Sony hadn’t created something like the iPhone.
Those are my assessments from January 2011. My point is that a familiar, prestigious brand can still make a shit product or a model that disappoints you. So I’d rather investigate the specific product, even if I already wanted to buy that brand.
Reviews and brand loyalty in my hypothetical tablet example
Imagine, I said, that the next iPad came out in a few months and received poor reviews. Friends who’d bought it thought it was slow and sluggish, and it got three out of five stars online.
Then imagine HTC released a tablet that got 4.9 out of five from CNET. A couple of your friends had bought it and loved it. The price was the same or a little lower.
Which would you buy? I thought many people would choose the product that others had enjoyed, even if they otherwise considered themselves loyal to Apple. I wouldn’t need to know who HTC’s CEO was or the company’s entire history.
Both ratings and the imagined products belong to my hypothetical example. I wasn’t describing a test that had already happened. I was trying to show how recommendations could beat a familiar name.
A lollipop and an expensive purchase don’t get the same attention
I still think brands can have a role in purchases you don’t care much about. I’m unlikely to go online to see which lollipop got 4.9 out of five stars.
I also try an example about roller skates for children but realise myself it may not be a very good example. What I mean is small everyday things where you don’t want to spend much time researching the market or asking friends.
There, TV adverts and branding can still influence the choice. You pick something familiar because you don’t want to turn the purchase into a big project.
With travel, cars, electronics and household appliances, though, I thought other people’s online experiences would matter more. Those purchases cost quite a bit. I had more trust in people who’d tried something themselves and gave their opinion than in a manufacturer’s promise that the latest TV was future-proof.
So my question wasn’t just whether branding was disappearing. It was how far the brand could still stand alone when customers could easily investigate the individual model and hear from others who’d used it.
The original reference from 2011 was to Tveskov’s newsletter at tinyletter.com/tveskov. The address now leads to a Mailchimp pricing page and is no longer the signup page mentioned.
Jeg forstår din pointe og er enig en del af vejen. Der hvor jeg er uenig er todelt:
1) Loyalitets-faktoren
Ja, flere og flere tjekker nettets fora når de skal købe nyt. Men der er stadig en stor skare af "almindelige" mennesker, der er meget styret af mærker og de erfaringer familie og venner har haft med diverse mærker. For denne gruppe er branding stadig en vigtig faktor.
Der kan være forskelle fra branche til branche hvor stor denne gruppe er og hvordan man skal møde dem. Der kan evt være tale om, at man i sin branding skal imødegå fejl og dårlig presseomtale.
2) Meta-brands
Jeg tror, at de store mærker bevæger sig hen mod at forene deres brand med et slags meta brand, der associeres med kulturer og sub-kulturer, som for eksempel løbere, design, funk, punk, Broadway, etc.
Så selvom de pusher deres eget brand, så er fokus mere på (sub-) kulturen. Det gør at de skal kunne divergere deres brand, da de skal ramme flere (sub-)grupper. Da kunderne nu er mere loyale overfor deres (sub-) kultur er de "nye" brands nød til at kunne være flere brands på samme tid.
Håber det giver mening 🙂