What is a brand?
It is the consumer’s perception of your business.
It is the way your product/service/attitude makes them feel.
The impact a brand can have on somebody is incredible, sometimes even the ‘love is blind’ cliche applies…for instance, I recently switched my skin care products to the Dermalogica brand. Now, after using their products, Dermalogica can do no wrong in my eyes – I just think they’re utterly fantastic.
It can be the opposite, though. I will name & shame in this post because I was disgusted with the way numerous Goldmark stores treated their employees – one of them being a best friend of mine. And because of the way they deal internally, I now refuse to step foot inside their stores. That brand has been forever tainted and I will never buy from them again.
On a more positive note, I think I am a good consumer to many brands. I am loyal and will rarely buy from a competitor if I am genuinely happy with the business. I will always recommend a great product or service to friends/family (SSS BBQ Barns, if you are reading this, I have raved about your restaurants to many, many people). If you convince me enough, I will always spend my disposable income on your products that I don’t technically need. I also seem to develop an emotional attachment to brands as well, take the RSPCA for example - I feel so strongly about animal cruelty & homelessness that that charity always remains at the top of my list.
Then there’s the ‘image’. I will admit, I am a very materialistic person (although not at all shallow) and I take great care to try and project the image of what I want people to perceive me as. And even though I am in the advertising industry and know when they are using imagery to perceive a certain lifestyle, I still buy into it. It recently led me to purchase a watch that I really didn’t need, but that i ‘had’ to have.
So as I finish posting on my WordPress blog, pack up my Toshiba laptop, order Eagle Boys pizza for dinner & drive away in my Celica, I am left wondering just how much brands & imagery influence others like they do me.
3 Comments
October 13, 2008 at 9:05 pm
“And even though I am in the advertising industry and know when they are using imagery to perceive a certain lifestyle, I still buy into it. It recently led me to purchase a watch that I really didn’t need, but that i ‘had’ to have.”
So, so true! I’m a regular brand fool: the little rational voice in my head goes all quiet in the presence of an emotionally charged brand.
October 14, 2008 at 11:55 am
“So as I finish posting on my WordPress blog, pack up my Toshiba laptop, order Eagle Boys pizza for dinner & drive away in my Celica, I am left wondering just how much brands & imagery influence others like they do me.”
Great post. Also very interesting how you influence all those brands.
December 23, 2008 at 9:54 am
[...] an eye on the conversation Jump to Comments I wrote this post back in October, and at the very end I mentioned the Eagle Boys Pizza brand. A couple of days [...]