Shopping Discussion

How susceptible to "brands" are you?

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Deal Guru
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Nov 6, 2010
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How susceptible to "brands" are you?

Like on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is "brands don't matter" and 10 is "brand X is life") where would you rate your faith in brands?

I ask because I notice that many people around me are very much influenced by brands even though there's many documented instances of brands doing good or bad in their given industry.
There's many examples but here's a few random ones off the top of my head:
- They're Sennheiser headphones, they must be good.
- It's a Honda car, it must be reliable.
- It's IKEA, it must be crap furniture.

I'm not saying there's no truth to these statements, but for products/offerings from a company, it's a case by case scenario even more so than generalizations. Sennheiser has put out crappy headphones before (especially their lower end stuff), Honda has made unreliable vehicles (early 2000s), IKEA furniture while not the best quality can be perfectly fine (we have some LACK tables that lasted easily 10 years) and so on and so forth.

Anyways point being, how confident are you in a "brand" aka how susceptible are you to purchase (or not purchase) a product purely based on its brand?

And perhaps a more interesting question...how easily (or not easily) would it be to have your opinion on a brand changed (either good or bad)?
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Deal Addict
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Nov 13, 2003
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SASKABUSH
well I have found I have to have a certain brand of Greek yogurt cus the others I tried I literally threw away ...does that count? ....
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6ish? Product performance and pricing are my top priorities - but I may scrutinize products from lesser brands more closely, and I'll be a little more lax when it comes to established brands.
When given enough time, all threads on RFD can and will go off on a tangent.
Deal Guru
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Jul 7, 2007
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generalization is a human trend. so it applies to everyone, regardless if you 'feel' its influence or not.

my rule of thumb is.. never buy the cheapest item in a brand (category), that's where you will get lemons
Deal Fanatic
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Oct 1, 2011
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Depends on the brand. Some brands really do earn their reputations. Others I'm fine with knockoffs/generics.
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Dec 23, 2015
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People who follow what others do are fools.

"Others like BMWs so if I get a BMW then people will respect me" <- the way a moron thinks. This guy will never be a leader, only a follower. He will always have others telling him what to do.

There's nothing wrong with liking a brand becuase you've had personal experience with that brand and know for a fact they make quality stuff. But only lemmings pursue a brand simply because they see others do. But even if you know a brand makes high quality stuff, you have to be careful because that changes over time. For example RCA used to build high quality stereo's and TVs back in the day but now they're a cheap budget brand. Sometimes it's the other way around, like Hyundai used to build low quality cars in the 90s but recently their quality has gone way up and I would say in the last few years their quality rivals Honda/Toyota. Or somtimes a brand is really good at one thing but not another, for example Samsung makes really high quality phones, however their washing machines aren't that good.
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Nov 12, 2011
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aeba7 wrote: 6ish? Product performance and pricing are my top priorities - but I may scrutinize products from lesser brands more closely, and I'll be a little more lax when it comes to established brands.
+1. I'm the same.
Deal Guru
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Nov 6, 2010
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Like I said, I knowbrands develop a reputation and image which I also subscribe to, but I wonder how many people buy into it without actually ever owning a product.

Also I wonder how easily peoples opinions of brands are changed. Like for most people, Honda's scabble in the early 2000s didn't change their image much even though many car reviewers gave them lower reliability ratings ever since then.
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Jan 16, 2015
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Brand names do matter. Like people still think Hyundai cars are lower class than Honda even though Hyundai cars are pretty competitive now.

I also won't buy a Walmart brand anything because Walmart stuff is consistently very poor quality.

And if you have a name like Huawei that no English speaking person can pronounce, you are not going to sell many phones.
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May 19, 2015
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JoeStale wrote: Brand names do matter. Like people still think Hyundai cars are lower class than Honda even though Hyundai cars are pretty competitive now.

I also won't buy a Walmart brand anything because Walmart stuff is consistently very poor quality.

And if you have a name like Huawei that no English speaking person can pronounce, you are not going to sell many phones
.
That hasn't stopped Huawei from overtaking a long established company like Ericsson to become the world's #1 network equipment vendor in less than 20 years.

AS for Walmart, you should go to one of the superstores on a weekend or even Friday. They're so crowded you can't even walk.

I look at a product's quality and pricing. There is a tendency to associate branded products with quality and to hence tolerate higher prices, however that assumption doesn't always hold true. I recently bought a $150 pair of Ralph Lauren shoes which were so uncomfortable and flimsily made that I returned them within 2 days. I ended up buying a a cheaper, but far more robustly constructed pair of Kodiak shoes (at Walmart, no less) and could not be happier.
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Darklightning wrote: That hasn't stopped Huawei from overtaking a long established company like Ericsson to become the world's #1 network equipment vendor in less than 20 years.

AS for Walmart, you should go to one of the superstores on a weekend or even Friday. They're so crowded you can't even walk.

I look at a product's quality and pricing. There is a tendency to associate branded products with quality and to hence tolerate higher prices, however that assumption doesn't always hold true. I recently bought a $150 pair of Ralph Lauren shoes which were so uncomfortable and flimsily made that I returned them within 2 days. I ended up buying a a cheaper, but far more robustly constructed pair of Kodiak shoes (at Walmart, no less) and could not be happier.
The common consumer is not the one purchasing Huawei network gear. In fact, a common consumer would not even know that Huawei sells networking great.

And have you seen the people that shop at Walmart? Quality is not at the top of the list.
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May 19, 2015
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JoeStale wrote: The common consumer is not the one purchasing Huawei network gear. In fact, a common consumer would not even know that Huawei sells networking great.

And have you seen the people that shop at Walmart? Quality is not at the top of the list.
What about Asus? Or Nvidia? or Hyundai? or Häagen Dazs? How about the dozens of French named brands like L'Oreal, Estée Lauder etc? Aren't these established brands despite being difficult to pronounce?

The name of a brand is irrelevant if the company behind it has the financial muscle to make it well known and of course produces a product that is cheaper and of comparable quality as the competition. Huawei is the company that gave us the latest Nexus 6P which is a fantastic phone, as more people use it and become familiar with the pronunciation, the brand will become more well known as well. I think it's just a matter of time.
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Darklightning wrote: What about Asus? Or Nvidia? or Hyundai? or Häagen Dazs? How about the dozens of French named brands like L'Oreal, Estée Lauder etc? Aren't these established brands despite being difficult to pronounce?

The name of a brand is irrelevant if the company behind it has the financial muscle to make it well known and of course produces a product that is cheaper and of comparable quality as the competition. Huawei is the company that gave us the latest Nexus 6P which is a fantastic phone, as more people use it and become familiar with the pronunciation, the brand will become more well known as well. I think it's just a matter of time.
Those names you posted are easy to pronounce in English, except for Hyundai. And Hyundai is seen as a low ranked car company, not a to brand name. My point is proven.

Huawei is too Asian in the pronunciation and look of the word. Even making the Nexus 6P won't help because people will just call it the Google Nexus 6P which is much easier to say and more natural in English. Oh, and I think the Google Nexus 6P looks ugly.

Branding does matter even if the company has the money. No one wants to buy stuff branded Made in America because it has now been forever ingrained in consumer mind that Made in America = Poorly Manufactured.
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Feb 16, 2014
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Age thing bcuz when I was in high school and I didn't care.
M since I started working, I would mostly spend money on brand name clothings. E.g diesel, c.k, Armani, etc....

Car I don't really care much about...

Most my clothes I buy are idea I get from Pinterest and YouTube...
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Nah... These days you don't have to rely on brand reputation to determine quality and performance. Just google reviews for your purchases...

For impulse stuff i do go with brand and rep. E.g. I'm at the grocery store and need some spgood steak for a nice family dinner... I'll go for the angus bc its gotta be decent at least.

Except for cars... I can never get myself to drive a hyundai no matter how good their cars are now. But i would recommend hyundai to others... Lol
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Dec 3, 2007
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I am a rebel. Brands have opposite effect on me.
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UrbanPoet wrote: Nah... These days you don't have to rely on brand reputation to determine quality and performance. Just google reviews for your purchases...

For impulse stuff i do go with brand and rep. E.g. I'm at the grocery store and need some spgood steak for a nice family dinner... I'll go for the angus bc its gotta be decent at least.

Except for cars... I can never get myself to drive a hyundai no matter how good their cars are now. But i would recommend hyundai to others... Lol
On the flip side, I recommend Hyundai because I've owned 3 of them in the last 27 years with the last one bought in 2013. My 88 Excel died after 11 years and 557,000 km, the second 00 Accent lasted 13 years and 690,000 kms. Neither even once broke down and left me stranded anywhere. Current 13 Accent is low mileage though 28,000 kms from April 2013 till now.

But normally I always look for a good deal on everyday products no matter who sells them. Brand names are not a consideration usually.
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Red Green
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Darklightning wrote: What about Asus? Or Nvidia? or Hyundai? or Häagen Dazs? How about the dozens of French named brands like L'Oreal, Estée Lauder etc? Aren't these established brands despite being difficult to pronounce?
JoeStale wrote: Those names you posted are easy to pronounce in English, except for Hyundai.
As an aside, I've only ever met two or three people who could pronounce Asus properly.
When given enough time, all threads on RFD can and will go off on a tangent.
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May 19, 2015
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aeba7 wrote: As an aside, I've only ever met two or three people who could pronounce Asus properly.
I think it applies to all of those names. The only reason one may know how to pronounce them is by learning from others, as they are obviously not English names. I wasn't sure at first if Asus was "Ah-soos" or "Ace-us". I eventually found out by watching YT videos about product reviews from this company.

In other cases, foreign-origin names are widely mispronounced by everyone in the media and the general public in some countries. For example, the correct pronunciation for VW is not "wolks-wagon" but actually "Folks-vaagen". People routinely mispronounce this one. :D Yet no one claims that the name affects the sales of this company.

I think people are acclimatized to certain cultural normatives and not to others. Inherent biases are built up against "foreign-sounding" names if one already has biases against the cultures which originate those names. I was reading a nice article about how many American companies have French names even though they have nothing to do with France, just because they admire the French in that type of industry:

http://fashionista.com/2015/07/fake-french-brands

So although one's perceptions may be affected by the sound of a brand name, the important thing is to be aware of the factors that shape those perceptions and understand why were affected in that manner.

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