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Hear Here - Banding
You are so right! Branding is such a fickle bich! Look at cars in the 80's, absolute pure rubbish from anyone in North America, Dodge K-Cars and LeBaron (same thing), Ford Pinto, Plymouth Tourismo, Chevy Chevette (70's&80's) with unbelievably solid mini tanks coming from from Japan.
For the last 8-10 years, Ford has walked all over others with amazing breakthroughs in engineering and performance with subcompacts now eating up competitors as far as performance, safety, styling, fit and finish materials, and the F series trucks, which never touched bottom in over 4 decades,
But because they made the Pinto in the 70's and the Escort, people STILL go around saying what crap Ford builds. In reality they are coming out with some of the best manufactured cars around, the Focus for example has beaten out $30K + BMW 3 series in more tests than they can muster. But a brand takes a slap and it leave a red bottoms for many years to come.
I've seen it in Audio too. Polk once made a high end, speaker, now they are the lowest quality Mexican built crap you can buy, but people still rave on OOOOH, Polk, how Exotic! or BOSE, which makes dollar store garbage and still sells at a premium audiophile price when entry level competitors beat them for 25% of the price. Branding and dull minds.
Car audio, everyone touts Kenwood and Alpine due to their heydays of the 80's, but they are not the brands they once were, in fact Alpine has become low end, mainstream now, but still at a premium price because of the brand. I was talking to a friend on the weekend who owns a car audio specialty store. I was asking him why he didn't carry JVC car audio, a VERY well made product with awesome sound. He said, ah, JVC is junk. Alpine and Kenwood lead. This is of course completely false, Alpine and Kenwood 'SELL' because of branding, they most definitely don't LEAD anything, other than sales. JVC builds 10X the product for both quality and sound but they don't have the car audio branding they did 30 years ago. At one time, JVC lead for VCRs, TV's, Cameras, car audio etc. Samsung took over as the preferred TV brand but they don't make car audio, otherwise their brand would dominate there too, with a richer feature set, nicer lights etc.
These days, technology IS a brand, THX is a Lucas brand, not a technology. BluRay is a Sony brand, not a technology. HDMI is even a brand, not a technology. New 3D HDMI cables use a 1.4 technology but can't be advertised as HDMI 1.4 because HDMI is a brand and so is the 1.4 technology/brand (from another company), so all they can advertise is Super HDMI (3D ready) now instead of HDMI 1.4, because '1.4' actually IS technology and HDMI is a brand unrelated to the HDMI brand.
As a result, the public is left stupid. They don't know the difference between a Future Shop/BestBuy product (or even worse WalMart's junk) and something you'd buy from a boutique store.
WalMart sells a 43" Samsung LCD TV for $499, FutureShop and BestBuy sell a 43" Samsung LCD TV for $499, the boutique store sells a 43" Samsung LCD TV for $599.
Now most people would agree, that the 43" LCD is more expensive at the boutique store, in reality Samsung makes several 43" models, the low end exclusively for big box stores and the better quality set for boutique stores.
Public is left unknowing, and the Internet allows them to perpetuate their ignorance in Review Forums, spreading the uneducated word to the masses, who follow suit like the sheeple they have been trained to be.
Lets look at Apple: Apple computers are VERY robust and efficient. They lead when it comes to graphic design and publishing tasks, though that gap has become MUCH narrower in recent years. Then their BRAND comes out with the iPod, which didn't do anything competitive players did. Limited file formats, poor sound quality, poor ear buds, poor battery and build and an awful, proprietary interface (iTunes).
The BRAND was sold, everyone else went bye bye. THEN there's the iPhones, iPhones that did a fraction of what competitive smartphones did. iPhones were pushed as "smart phones" but were anything BUT smart. They didn't allow a business user to copy and paste, wouldn't run multiple apps at the same time for easy switching between them, wouldn't recognize stylus input due to a shltty interface that they reBRANDED as their own multitouch interface. iPhones, until at least V4 were absolute crap, today they are becoming usable but are nowhere NEAR the devices that were out years before iPhone ever hit the market. It's actually nice to see that others are still strong and that iPhone only LOOKED like it would completely take over. Even the consumer market is being lost to Android now, iPhones have very limited capabilities and the apps are pretty sad despite how many they boast offering.
In conclusion, our consumer based society is easily mislead, lead down the wrong path, brainwashed or whatever you want to call it. I've seen it in the recording industry too, producers KNOW they can pass off substandard crap that would NEVER have flown in analogue/vinyl formats, but with today's dumbed down consumer and market hype, BRANDING takes over and people live in an industry controlled, consumer market, as opposed to a consumer controlled market where industry responds to consumer demands.
For the last 8-10 years, Ford has walked all over others with amazing breakthroughs in engineering and performance with subcompacts now eating up competitors as far as performance, safety, styling, fit and finish materials, and the F series trucks, which never touched bottom in over 4 decades,
But because they made the Pinto in the 70's and the Escort, people STILL go around saying what crap Ford builds. In reality they are coming out with some of the best manufactured cars around, the Focus for example has beaten out $30K + BMW 3 series in more tests than they can muster. But a brand takes a slap and it leave a red bottoms for many years to come.
I've seen it in Audio too. Polk once made a high end, speaker, now they are the lowest quality Mexican built crap you can buy, but people still rave on OOOOH, Polk, how Exotic! or BOSE, which makes dollar store garbage and still sells at a premium audiophile price when entry level competitors beat them for 25% of the price. Branding and dull minds.
Car audio, everyone touts Kenwood and Alpine due to their heydays of the 80's, but they are not the brands they once were, in fact Alpine has become low end, mainstream now, but still at a premium price because of the brand. I was talking to a friend on the weekend who owns a car audio specialty store. I was asking him why he didn't carry JVC car audio, a VERY well made product with awesome sound. He said, ah, JVC is junk. Alpine and Kenwood lead. This is of course completely false, Alpine and Kenwood 'SELL' because of branding, they most definitely don't LEAD anything, other than sales. JVC builds 10X the product for both quality and sound but they don't have the car audio branding they did 30 years ago. At one time, JVC lead for VCRs, TV's, Cameras, car audio etc. Samsung took over as the preferred TV brand but they don't make car audio, otherwise their brand would dominate there too, with a richer feature set, nicer lights etc.
These days, technology IS a brand, THX is a Lucas brand, not a technology. BluRay is a Sony brand, not a technology. HDMI is even a brand, not a technology. New 3D HDMI cables use a 1.4 technology but can't be advertised as HDMI 1.4 because HDMI is a brand and so is the 1.4 technology/brand (from another company), so all they can advertise is Super HDMI (3D ready) now instead of HDMI 1.4, because '1.4' actually IS technology and HDMI is a brand unrelated to the HDMI brand.
As a result, the public is left stupid. They don't know the difference between a Future Shop/BestBuy product (or even worse WalMart's junk) and something you'd buy from a boutique store.
WalMart sells a 43" Samsung LCD TV for $499, FutureShop and BestBuy sell a 43" Samsung LCD TV for $499, the boutique store sells a 43" Samsung LCD TV for $599.
Now most people would agree, that the 43" LCD is more expensive at the boutique store, in reality Samsung makes several 43" models, the low end exclusively for big box stores and the better quality set for boutique stores.
Public is left unknowing, and the Internet allows them to perpetuate their ignorance in Review Forums, spreading the uneducated word to the masses, who follow suit like the sheeple they have been trained to be.
Lets look at Apple: Apple computers are VERY robust and efficient. They lead when it comes to graphic design and publishing tasks, though that gap has become MUCH narrower in recent years. Then their BRAND comes out with the iPod, which didn't do anything competitive players did. Limited file formats, poor sound quality, poor ear buds, poor battery and build and an awful, proprietary interface (iTunes).
The BRAND was sold, everyone else went bye bye. THEN there's the iPhones, iPhones that did a fraction of what competitive smartphones did. iPhones were pushed as "smart phones" but were anything BUT smart. They didn't allow a business user to copy and paste, wouldn't run multiple apps at the same time for easy switching between them, wouldn't recognize stylus input due to a shltty interface that they reBRANDED as their own multitouch interface. iPhones, until at least V4 were absolute crap, today they are becoming usable but are nowhere NEAR the devices that were out years before iPhone ever hit the market. It's actually nice to see that others are still strong and that iPhone only LOOKED like it would completely take over. Even the consumer market is being lost to Android now, iPhones have very limited capabilities and the apps are pretty sad despite how many they boast offering.
In conclusion, our consumer based society is easily mislead, lead down the wrong path, brainwashed or whatever you want to call it. I've seen it in the recording industry too, producers KNOW they can pass off substandard crap that would NEVER have flown in analogue/vinyl formats, but with today's dumbed down consumer and market hype, BRANDING takes over and people live in an industry controlled, consumer market, as opposed to a consumer controlled market where industry responds to consumer demands.
Posted by aidemzo_adanac
Updated - 7th Jan
