Brand Rivalries

[Stephen Tashiro]

As a young child, I recall heated debates about who made the best cars - Ford or Chevy? When I was a teenager, there were debates about which was better, Coca Cola or Pepsi. Nowadays, brand rivalries don't seem as intense. I wonder if this is simply because the people I am around are old enough to have more interesting things to talk about. Or is it because there are more brands of everything? Or have "brand" and "manufacturer" become so unrelated that "brand" has little meaning?

[Bonnie Campbell]

To me it's hard getting excited about most of the available 'brands'. Especially when you find out one company makes something and they slap a bunch of different brand names on the same product.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Or have "brand" and "manufacturer" become so unrelated that "brand" has little meaning?
"Generics" put a real hurt on the marketing of brand names.(IMHO)

I believe "brand names" do still count for something though,

I'd trust my life and the safety of Casa Englehardt to Federal any day of the week,,,,,but,,,not an offbrand - like Cor-Bon ;).

[Matt Meiser]

Some brand names don't mean a thing anymore. We bought a GE waffle maker. Made under license of GE in China for Walmart according to the fine print on the bottom of the box. GE's involvement appears to be taking a few bucks to let Walmart slap their name on a generic waffle maker. Didn't seem to be any better or worse quality than every other low-end waffle maker and in fact looked identical to one I saw at Target with another name for a few bucks more (we waffled for quite a while on whether we needed a waffle maker :rolleyes:). Now I see GE digital cameras which are bottom of the barrel stuff.

We also had the zipper come apart on the bag of a Coleman folding chair we bought after just a few months. My wife called Coleman and found out they didn't make or sell it, just someone using their name. The maker did take care of it though (kind of--they couldn't send us the right color but the one they sent does work.)

In some cases, such as the junk with GE's name on it, it seems like all the brand owners care about is making a buck and don't care who slaps their name on what as long as they get their buck. That's really diluted the brand name in my mind. I don't get why these companies allow that to happen. If I'm average Joe Consumer and bought a junk "GE" camera that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, what am I going to think when I go shopping for light bulbs or refrigerators and see the GE logo?

Our Maytag stove is exactly the same as my dad's Whirlpool except for the plastic trim bezel around the controls. That bezel and the logo are styled to invoke thoughts of the good old Maytag stuff. The only reason I considered it was because it was identical and my dad has been having good luck with his Whirlpool.

In the tool world everyone sells the same basic machines. You can buy a Delta planer and pay for the Delta logo and rapidly declining customer service. Or you can buy the Grizzly logo, save a ton and get ever improving customer service. Actually any more I personally wouldn't consider Grizzly to be a generic or off brand.

[Derek Gilmer]

"
I'd trust my life and the safety of Casa Englehardt to Federal any day of the week,,,,,but,,,not an offbrand - like Cor-Bon ;).

That is why I only shoot pdx .410 shells out of your taurus judge?


jk...

Winchester ranger talons + G27 wins the day :D

[Logan William]

,

I'd trust my life and the safety of Casa Englehardt to Federal any day of the week,,,,,but,,,not an offbrand - like Cor-Bon ;).

+1 for Federal in the nightstand, 4 shot High brass in the scattergun and some Winchester in the .17 for the coon and possum that I catch at night.

As far as back to the OP, I think that for any major purchase now you really have to do your research and find out what you're buying. As was recently discussed here about gas ranges, especially in appliances they're being sold under so many different names/manufacturers/distribution channels that they may have 2 virtually identical products just under different brands being sold for large price differences that they feel are justified because of the "brand" Now some manufacturers are staying away from watering down the brand with lower end models(seen any new 25k Cadillacs?), and others are doing everything possible to raise their brand(s) image so that they can move up a "tier" in the perception game from an off brand/import to a major player(example Huyndai Genesis & Equus)from a major player to a premium.

Now from working at a company that has a lot of "brand equity" that we work very hard to keep, I can tell you building that brand and that perception is incredibly difficult and expensive to do, but if you can do it and continue to sell quality product and have great customer service when their is an issue that brand can be your biggest asset when going after customers. However its incredibly easy to ruin a brand(anyone seen Firestone tires recently?) and once you do that its hard to get it back.

Bottom line IMO is that its hard to beat researching the snot out of any major purchase to know what you're getting, who makes it, and maybe can you get the same model with a different name on it for a nice discount by driving to the other side of town?

[David Weaver]

As a young child, I recall heated debates about who made the best cars - Ford or Chevy? When I was a teenager, there were debates about which was better, Coca Cola or Pepsi. Nowadays, brand rivalries don't seem as intense. I wonder if this is simply because the people I am around are old enough to have more interesting things to talk about. Or is it because there are more brands of everything? Or have "brand" and "manufacturer" become so unrelated that "brand" has little meaning?

I think there was a much bigger difference between brand quality and generic back then. Same was true when I was young. Never much difference between ford and chevy, but generic products even when I was a kid were a lot more buyer beware.

I think the people in their 50s and 60s now are going to be the last of the brand loyal folks. My inlaws are very brand loyal, my parents have always tried to save money whenever it wasn't related to housing or shelter.

And as matt says now, people aren't afraid to put their brands on much of anything, no matter how junky it is.

[Perry Holbrook]

In the consumer products arena, this is probably true. However, in other products Branding an image/ name is still one of the most important and expensive purposes of maketing departments of any larger company. Companies still buy a Caterpillar, because of the name and image, even though it may or may not be the best product in it's class for the same money (as an example).

I know in my very small business, image and branding of my company's name is becoming more and more important.

Perry

[Jim Koepke]

As a young child, I recall heated debates about who made the best cars - Ford or Chevy? When I was a teenager, there were debates about which was better, Coca Cola or Pepsi.

A lot of these kind of arguments are based on personal preference and chance occurrences as opposed to factual criteria.

I had a great experience at a Chevy dealer one time that I remembered for years. An experience at a Chrysler dealer left me with a sour taste. Out of hundreds of dealers for these two makers, those two have had an impact on the rest of my life.

We used to have much more diversity in manufacturing in America. Then came corporate mergers. Another factor was a large retailer that convinced people that price was possibly the first and most important consideration. At one time, they even had big signs saying made in America. Over the years with pressure to lower prices more, many of the suppliers had to shift their manufacturing or not sell to their biggest buyer. Now that same retailer is still around. They still try to have the lowest prices. This also causes them to have the lowest wages. It also causes all of their suppliers to look for the lowest cost of manufacturing to supply their largest customer.

As long as the dollar is more important than quality or name, we will continue on this race to the bottom.

As long as people think the name on the outside of the box is synonymous for the quality inside the box, the big names will have an incentive to make money by selling nothing more than their name.

I used to work with a person who considered cost before anything else. He bought a lot of junk that did not work. When this was pointed out, he would gleefully exclaim, "but it was cheap."

I just do not have enough money to throw away on junk or to reward those who are foisting it on the public.

I have not been in a Baskin Robbins in years, but one thing I do like about them is the plaque that was on the wall inside so many of them:


There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.
-- John Ruskin

jtk

[Bryan Morgan]

As a young child, I recall heated debates about who made the best cars - Ford or Chevy? When I was a teenager, there were debates about which was better, Coca Cola or Pepsi. Nowadays, brand rivalries don't seem as intense. I wonder if this is simply because the people I am around are old enough to have more interesting things to talk about. Or is it because there are more brands of everything? Or have "brand" and "manufacturer" become so unrelated that "brand" has little meaning?


I think we all realized that nowdays everything is made by just a handful of companies that own everything. Aside from that, its pointless to argue, especially since its all 100% subjective anyway. In a way, we've grown up. :)

[Dan Hintz]

Federal Hydro-Shok in the mags for my .45, army surplus can of hot reloads for when I'm empty and there are still zombies coming at me. :p

[Bryan Morgan]

Federal Hydro-Shok in the mags for my .45, army surplus can of hot reloads for when I'm empty and there are still zombies coming at me. :p

I prefer the Hornady +P Hollow points for the 9mm, whatever is on sale for the .45 Come on, its a .45! :) Black Hills molly coated hollowpoint .223 for the AR. :D

Anything but Wolf (except in 7.62 for the AK or SKS, works fine).

[Brian Kent]

My wife says if I die she will put logos on the car for all of my brands:

Honda
Apple
United Methodist
Lee Valley
Lie Nielsen
Grizzly
Yamaha
Musser
Old Stanley
UMCOR
NRSV

and if anyone says, "Hey, that's me" then he will probably be a good match.