Thursday, November 29, 2012

Brand (dis)Loyalty

Over the past few years, I have noticed a trend in my purchasing patterns that involves periods of intense brand loyalty followed by sudden impulsive changes for no apparent reason other than a desire for variety. This sort of behavior I first realized when I would purchase soft drinks. Growing up I was only a coke drinker. Always ordered coke at every meal, and would hit up the school pop machines as often as possible. One day however, I ordered a Pepsi for no apparent reason and have been drinking it ever since. Occasionally I will venture back to coke and I also enjoy Dr. Pepper but Pepsi is top dog. The next instance of flip-flopping that I noticed came when I was purchasing guitar strings. There are many different brands of guitar strings, all claiming to be number 1 or claiming to last longer and have crisper sound. For the first three years of my attempt at playing guitar, I would religiously buy Ernie Ball guitar strings because my favorite musician at the time (Slash) was sponsored by Ernie Ball. One day when I was going to buy strings, I decided to purchase a different brand. I had no reason to try another brand. None of the artists I looked up to used the other brand, and I don't remember seeing any advertisements that stood out to me. I think I simply just wanted a change. This phenomenon that I have sort of begun to realize has made me aware that sometimes consumers will just need change for the sake of change, and not because of any real reason or stimuli.

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