When we’re out for a day of splurging, we’re often stumbled with one serious question: Where should I shop today? We most likely have a mental list of stores to go to and a subconscious order with which we plan to visit these stores. We hold on to our favorite brands like how we hold on to the handle of roller coasters when the ride is just about to begin. We feel a sense of security, a sense of familiarity because we know our brands already. What’s the deal with brand consciousness anyways?
Brand names toggle the way we live in each day. We are bombarded with TV commercials and billboards showing how a certain product works better when a famous name is attached to it. Our fashion choices are often affected by our preference for Brand X over Brand Z. In actuality, we pay extra for a brand’s name because a lot of times, impressions of luxury are attached to it. Brands are status symbols meant to portray that your means can afford a certain way of living. Even if two products evidently portray the same quality, you would tend to pay more for a product that is more known in a specific field. You could say that it is a capitalist mechanism to garner more profit. It is in brand names that a specific lifestyle is established so that a certain group of people will patronize them. Excellent marketing further enhances this. Let’s put the ‘sports” lifestyle at the forefront for example. We can snap an automatic list of brands that cater to people who are inclined to this kind of living – whether it may be leisure sports or professional sports. Moreover, brands develop niches that identify a certain subculture. Punk subcultures could be associated with Vivienne Westwood or the style savvy youth may be linked to stores like Topshop or Forever 21, for instance.
But in being brand conscious, one tends to lose hold on the value of utility and on a product’s capacity to perform a certain job. As consumers, our main purpose in buying items is to look for products that cater to our needs. We are responsible consumers if we prioritize our search on a product’s usefulness rather than being oblivious to it. After all, it isn’t the brand name that does the job of meeting of our needs - it’s the product actual utility.
We close doors when we are inclined to being brand conscious. In fact, at some degree, we tend to be lazy when we trust too much on a specific product. We give up the effort to explore new brands that might pour out better and cheaper service than our go-to source. There will always be a variety of products in the market. As New Girl puts it, it’s always good to “dip our toes in the pool of possibilities”.
Ultimately, brand consciousness may come as a boon or a bane depending on what angle you look. At the end of the day however, brands are but names and clothes are but clothes – we wear them all the same way.
Brand names toggle the way we live in each day. We are bombarded with TV commercials and billboards showing how a certain product works better when a famous name is attached to it. Our fashion choices are often affected by our preference for Brand X over Brand Z. In actuality, we pay extra for a brand’s name because a lot of times, impressions of luxury are attached to it. Brands are status symbols meant to portray that your means can afford a certain way of living. Even if two products evidently portray the same quality, you would tend to pay more for a product that is more known in a specific field. You could say that it is a capitalist mechanism to garner more profit. It is in brand names that a specific lifestyle is established so that a certain group of people will patronize them. Excellent marketing further enhances this. Let’s put the ‘sports” lifestyle at the forefront for example. We can snap an automatic list of brands that cater to people who are inclined to this kind of living – whether it may be leisure sports or professional sports. Moreover, brands develop niches that identify a certain subculture. Punk subcultures could be associated with Vivienne Westwood or the style savvy youth may be linked to stores like Topshop or Forever 21, for instance.
But in being brand conscious, one tends to lose hold on the value of utility and on a product’s capacity to perform a certain job. As consumers, our main purpose in buying items is to look for products that cater to our needs. We are responsible consumers if we prioritize our search on a product’s usefulness rather than being oblivious to it. After all, it isn’t the brand name that does the job of meeting of our needs - it’s the product actual utility.
We close doors when we are inclined to being brand conscious. In fact, at some degree, we tend to be lazy when we trust too much on a specific product. We give up the effort to explore new brands that might pour out better and cheaper service than our go-to source. There will always be a variety of products in the market. As New Girl puts it, it’s always good to “dip our toes in the pool of possibilities”.
Ultimately, brand consciousness may come as a boon or a bane depending on what angle you look. At the end of the day however, brands are but names and clothes are but clothes – we wear them all the same way.
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