Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Lovemark Why?

A “lovemark” according to Kevin Roberts is a certain brand that a human is loyal to even though there is no real reason for it. I personally cannot think of any particular brand that I am totally loyal to. However, there are several reasons that one could use to justify such a way of thinking.

First off having loyalty to a specific brand can help relieve one of decision making. If you have a brand of lets say… pants that you really like, you know where to find them in the store and you know which size you wear in that brand. Therefore, it would only make sense for you to go buy that kind of pants. With this in mind there are positive and negative effects that come with buying one brand of something. Staying with the idea of pants... it is likely that there is another brand of pants that will fit you better, or they may be more comfortable, maybe even cheaper. Sure, you would have to spend some time to locate those pants but being stuck in a rut generally is not a good thing. Apart from the decision making issue some may stick with a certain brand to obtain or maintain status.

If you read a fashion magazine… for instance “Vogue” and flip to the ’10 Best Dressed’ section you will see woman dressed in Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Versace (hands down some of the most expensive brands you can find). In the socialite setting these brands represent status, and status is important. In the world of Paris Hilton a new ‘Louis’ bag coming out is a must have because generally in the socialite world they are loyal to that brand. In this situation the loyalty to a brand relies on the need to maintain status or to gain it. These people could justify their love of expensive items simply by showing that they have the money to purchase such things; but again it would make more sense to shop around and spend a more practical amount of cash.

A truly good justification for a “lovemark” would be absolute knowledge of an item. Unfortunately there is no way to know everything about a company (unless of course you are the owner). It is obvious why one cannot truly understand everything about a company. All bad aspects are hidden from the public to maintain consumers. On the other hand people can gain a good amount of understanding with much research, debatably enough to rationalize a “lovemark”. For example one might want to only buy cloths that were not made in a sweatshop, but researching that topic you may find a particular brand that intrigues you.

There are other reasons that would validate a human’s loyalty to a brand name… but these are the first that came to my mind. With that being said Robert’s thesis was wrong there are most certainly real reasons to be loyal to a company. Whether or not one takes these ideas seriously is up to them.

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