An example that really stood out to me was: People shopping at Adidas stores wearing Nikes and the other way around.
Curious how has your experience changed with brands and are you still loyal to one single brand in a specific category?
Funny enough, I was thinking about this today as well.
In my opinion, there are many different factors at work here:
- Consumers in (most) modern markets have an abundance of choice, freeing them to choose what most fits their needs and not what a corporation dictates that segment of their life should be.
- Capitalism sometimes bites back, speaking specifically on this one about banks. Many people I've spoken with (obviously take this with a grain of salt) spoke about how pre-'09 many, many people were pretty loyal to their bank, even if it was one of the mega-banks. Now that customers see that companies are no longer loyal to them, why be loyal in return?
- The Internet has made consumer research incredibly efficient. No longer do you have to drive to the Nike store to see something, go drive to the Adidas store to check out its competition, and then drive back to buy or just stick to one store. Now anyone can go on Amazon (or whatever site), read reviews, and pick whatever fits their needs/style.
Basically I have quite a bit of unorganized, and probably uninformed, thoughts about this, and would love to hear others as well.
I am however more picky about some categories, and some brands. I'll never buy a Samsung anything. I've "inherited" a samsung a/c, and a samsung TV. They didn't quite catch fire like the last bunch of phones, but they're sufficiently terrible and combined with their corporate MO of "copy $PopularBrand, then cut corners" on basically everything they make, and I will never buy anything from that company.