01/12/2005: "The Brand is Dead. Long live The Brand..."

listening to: NPR, as always.
feeling: Hungry.

"...floods of people were streaming in as I left the Apple store and several employees at the door were handing out shuffles from boxes by the dozens. People were buying 3, 4, 5 of these things at a time. Amazing what a brand can make people do."

Maybe it's not that branding is dead, but that you've pimped yours out too hard.

I say this to you, Sony, AIWA, Dell, Panasonic, Gateway, Phillips, GE, and all other manufacturers of electronics (especially you GE and Panasonic), your brand means nothing if you sell inferior goods.

In my mind GE means "Broken in 90 days" and Panasonic means "Fried the day after the Warrantee Expires with no customer support". Gateway used to be brands people trusted in an almost sub-culture way, like Apple had long been. Phillips was old reliable, and Dell was the local guy that made good. But no more. My advice to you is stop trying to figure out how to make money and start trying to figure out how to make a better product.

Okay, Rant Over.