Wired 12.11: The Decline of Brands: “Even as companies have spent enormous amounts of time and energy introducing new brands and defending established ones, Americans have become less loyal. Consumer-goods markets used to be very stable. If you had a set of customers today, you could be pretty sure most of them would still be around two years, five years, ten years from now. That’s no longer true. A study by retail-industry tracking firm NPD Group found that nearly half of those who described themselves as highly loyal to a brand were no longer loyal a year later. Even seemingly strong names rarely translate into much power at the cash register. Another remarkable study found that just 4 percent of consumers would be willing to stick with a brand if its competitors offered better value for the same price. Consumers are continually looking for a better deal, opening the door for companies to introduce a raft of new products.”
I totally, completely understand this. That’s why PalmOne doesn’t bug me. Yeah, used their handhelds for many years, but right now they’re not making the mest experience for me. Tapwave is. So I buy a Zodiac. A friend of mine has a Tungsten C that is slowly dying (the Y key is now intermittant) and while he owns a Bluetooth cell phone and lusts for my Zodiac (he has the 64MB C packed to the gills), he resists buying a Zodiac because he feels some brand loyalty to PalmOne. Granted, he’s also over 50, which makes me wonder if brand loyalty is a generational thing that we Xers and younger don’t get.
Thoughts?
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