In a world where many companies are vying for higher sales, where many products are being touted as the “best in the market”, it’s hard to know where to look. We all resort to the all-too-common default method – brand loyalty. Manufacturers actively compete to recruit a loyal crowd of followers in order to maintain sales. But I raise the question – where does this brand loyalty come from? Let’s take a look.
To start off, a great example is none other than yours truly. If you know my taste in computers at all, you would know that I am fairly biased in the consumer processor market towards Intel. I have almost always built using Intel (yes, I’ve built with an AMD processor before), and I will probably continue to do so. Why? For me, there are two clear reasons for my loyalty. I’ve started peaking into the computer market right when Intel and AMD reached the sublime 1 Ghz mark. Back then, AMD was just having problems with heat dissipation and keeping the processor cool. In fact, my friends, Gateway, which sported an AMD Athlon 1Ghz processor, fried and crashed. That is one clear reason why I stay away from AMD – a previous experience that scared me away. Granted, that was a long time ago but why do I continue to use Intel? That’s my other reason. I see no real incentive to switch to AMD. Intel gets the job done for me.
If you are ultimately loyal to a certain brand or product, the manufacturer has accomplished their goal. While there are a plethora of personal reasons, I think there are two main sources of this behavior: lack of real alternatives & monopoly/market-dominance, or the proverbial “if it works, keep using it” scheme. I mentioned above that with me, my propensity to continually use Intel comes from my not wanting to change what’s working well.
If there is a lack of alternatives, it’s hard to do anything about that. I know of a perfect example in the computer industry where this is true – mainstream consumer sound cards. Creative Labs has seemingly dominates the sound card scene with its Sound Blaster line. To me, it’s really fascinating how that works. While competitors do exist in Turtle Beach and even with M-Audio, Creative Labs has really kept other manufacturers at bay in terms of mainstream consumers. Just when you think it’s the end of Creative Labs’ dominance, they release something new and better – for example, with the X-Fi series, it created a new incentive for consumers to buy Creative. That’s smart marketing.
The Manufacturer’s Take
Despite everything they’re proclaiming about a “new and improved” technology, remember that money is, to them, the driving force behind ingenuity. They’ll improve their product only as an incentive to keep loyal customers and make new ones. A great example is ATI when it released its Radeon 9500 and 9700 series. It blew their competitor, nVidia, away. That created a host of loyal followers to ATI’s graphics cards that eventually led to a co-dominance in the consumer graphics card sphere. In all, any company’s’ ultimate goal, as aforementioned, is to create a loyal chain of customers who will continually look to them for their products of services.
My Take on Brand Loyalty
All of us operate with some degree of brand loyalty. There’s nothing wrong with that – I’ve pointed out the valid reasons why we act in such a way. However, it is important to consider the other side. Just like it is important to try new menu items when you eat at a new restaurant, it is important to try new products and new brands every so often. Like for me, after nearly a six year hiatus since last using AMD’s processors, I used their Athlon XP processor to put together a budget build for a customer. Works flawlessly, and it’s a heck of a lot faster than the Northwood core Celerons I’ve used. Yes, I use Intel almost exclusively today. But don’t be afraid to try something new.
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