So most of you know by now that I’m a huge dork. Some of you don’t. For those of you skeptical, I’ll prove it. I made personal business cards that look like an NES controller for fun. I mostly give these out when I attend gaming conventions or computer game events, but also to friends.
I made these because I wanted to come up with a creative and memorable business card that everybody could appreciate. What do you think?
It’s been said many times in many places: brand loyalty is dead. Especially on the web. With incredibly low costs and short consumer attention span, it’s easy to see why people jump to this conclusion. Yet brand loyalty is alive and kicking – you just have to know where to look.
When companies provide a superior service, customers care. You can find evidence of brand loyalty in hundreds of companies operating in dozens of industries that affect millions of customers. In fact, even in technology and on the web, where prices can be most cutthroat and products can be hardest to differentiate, there are plenty of examples of brand loyalty. Techies just might not use the term “brand loyalist”, as much as they use the term “fanboy”.
Everyone is a gaming fanboy in one way or another. If you love Mario, Sonic or Master Chief, you’re a fanboy. If you hate Solid Snake, Donkey Kong or Max Payne, you’re also a fanboy. People become brand loyalists very easily in gaming. They fall in love with a character, whether it’s because of their little catch phrases (“It’s-a-me! Mario!”), the way they look (Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher is just cool), or the way the game is played. It’s these little things that endear an audience to a character or brand franchise, and it’s these things that create fanboys.
Go on any gaming blog or forum, and you’ll see militant brand loyalists who argue why the Xbox 360 is a better gaming platform than the Playstation 3 (“We’ve got Master Chief and Left 4 Dead!”), or why the Wii is a great games system (“Super Smash Bros! Mario Kart!”), or why it isn’t. This is brand loyalty at its core, and at its most antagonistic. On the surface, the games platforms are ultimately similar in cost (PS3 Slim = $299, Xbox 360 Elite = $299), and have ultimately the same games (at least 75% of all titles are multiplatform), yet that doesn’t stop the brand loyalists from arguing. The fights are about how you “have to buy a 360 because of Halo”, or how the “Playstation 3′s graphics blow the 360 out of the water”, or how “the Wii is the best because of its motion tracking”. These arguments aren’t going to stop any time soon, what with Microsoft’s Project Natal set to release during holiday season, and with the Playstation 3′s own motion controller coming out as well.
I’m sure you’re already well aware of the biggest fanboys in tech: Apple. The empire that Steve Jobs built has created a veritable nation of dedicated brand loyalists. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are some easy ways to spot them). But Apple isn’t the only company. Google has begun to build their own following, with its search engine, Gmail, Chrome and the Android smartphone OS. Intel and AMD long had battles between brand loyalists, and both Nikon and Canon have passionate fan bases.
Each of these tech companies have amassed large followings not because they offer the lowest price. Or not even because they offer the best service or product. They build up brand loyalists because their marketers tell a story about their product. And about what they do. Apple talks about building beautiful, clean products that are easy to use and easy to appreciate. AMD caters to computer buffs interested in getting the most out of their processors (see: overclocking). Google is about simplicity and open source. Brand loyalty may be more difficult to obtain in the digital age, but it is absolutely possible.
I was an economics major in college. They told me that the consumer will eventually always find the lowest price, and that’s what drives competition. Frankly, that’s one of the greatest inventions of the internet – the access to pricing of a multitude of products right at your fingertips. However, in a world of extreme complexity, a low price is never the whole story. Sure, if you produce thumbtacks and your five biggest competitors are also thumbtack producers, you might not be able to differentiate and build brand loyalists. But companies who develop different products have always been able to build brand loyalty – from John Deere to Johnny Walker. Apple owners often pay 25% more for a computer with similar specifications because it looks better and their computer tells a story. People buy Harley Davidson motorcycles because it does the same thing.
If you know who Seth Godin is, none of this is news. Seth Godin is a marketer who I have always admired, and one who has built his life around creating and studying interesting marketing stories. A blogging master, New York Times Bestselling Author and the brains behind Squidoo, Seth’s one of the most best reads out there. Any non-believers in brand loyalty should read Seth. He’s been writing about remarkability and loyalty for years.
Since moving to Seattle 18 months ago, it’s been a very difficult transition. People tend to be awfully anti-social, they don’t wear suits, and they don’t know how to drive in the rain. Though I am very happy that I moved out here, it has definitely been a significant change from the East Coast lifestyle. During this time of transition, one of the things that has really kept me going (aside from my wonderful fiancee) has been attending local events. Over the past year, I’ve attended a number of local events, Tweetups and conferences. I’ve been able to meet some really outstanding people, and have had some fantastic conversations. Without those experiences, Seattle would be a much different place for me.
So a couple weeks back, when I spoke with Chris McCann, who runs Startup Digest, a weekly email highlighting local events, I offered to curate the Seattle chapter. I wanted to share the knowledge of great Seattle events for techies and entrepreneurs with others, and this looked like the perfect opportunity. Last week, our first issue went out. It’s something I’m very excited about, and if you’re in the Seattle area, I hope you’ll subscribe.
To subscribe to Startup Digest Seattle, go to TheStartupDigest.com and opt-in to the Seattle email. We were even featured in TechCrunch a few weeks ago, where they called it “a pretty smart idea”.
On that note, I will also be attending SMC Seattle’s One Year Anniversary today at Spitfire. If you’re there, come say hi.
This year, my New Year’s Resolution is to get the most out of the products I use. I recently received a Nikon D90 for Christmas from my family, and I want to make sure that it’s a present that doesn’t go to waste. The thing is, I often don’t take advantage of the full functionality of the products I use. Take Adobe Photoshop, for example. It’s an unbelievably extensive and powerful program. Yet I use it mostly to crop photos, adjust brightness, levels, curves, and sharpness and occasionally use filters to enhance (or, destroy) my images. If I were to make a guess, I probably use less than 10% of the program’s actual power.
Even as an extremely knowledgeable and large power user of Excel, I still haven’t learned how to properly harness macros. Yes, I can do a ton of pretty cool things with formulas and PivotTables, but without mastering (or even really ever using) macros, I’m leaving a huge part of the program untouched. So this year, rather than purchasing or using a number of new, different products, I want to truly maximize my value of the products I currently own. Luckily, doing that with Photoshop and my new camera will be a joint process – I’ll be posting my trials and tests on my flickr. I’d love to hear any feedback, whether positive or negative, as I am relatively new to photography. Regardless, I’m having fun learning new ways to use a camera and new tips and tricks with Photoshop.
The new layout for Techshots is also near to launch. I’m using the theme from P.J. Onori, which will also help me to integrate other sources like my Flickr, Tumblr and Google Reader feeds into the website. It should be up sometime early in the New Year.
Now that you’ve heard mine, what’s your New Year’s Resolution? Feel free to post your plans in the comment section.
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.