Brand Loyalty

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing brand loyalty.

Speaker B: 00:00:25

Nick, brand loyalty. Go for it. So this is a suggestion from loyal listener Helge up in Norway there. With good brand loyalty. Well, exactly. He wonders about the religiousness that seems to accrue to certain brands, e.g. Apple. You know, you get very fanatical fans of particular brands. And, you know, some companies seem to attract them. You do get people who really definitely like Apple, but you don't seem to find people who are really obsessed with sort of Tesco's. Microsoft, even. Yeah, I think that I think possibly in reaction to the Apple people, you get Microsoft fans. But it seems to be a phenomenon associated with certain kinds of thing. So I think we want to think about that. What kinds of things can inspire brand loyalty? But also, what kind of relationship is it when you're loyal to a brand?

Speaker A: 00:01:24

What does it mean to be loyal to a brand? Okay, nice. How do we want to kick this off? I mean, one obvious way is to just check if we're loyal to any particular brands. Or do you want to dive

Speaker B: 00:01:39

into it? How do you want to do this? Well, that's interesting. Well, I'll just use myself as a very quick case study. Okay. Because one of my favorite objects is my iPod classic. Yes. You're just all about Apple. You're an Apple fanboy, obviously. It's about 10 years old. Yeah. If not older, actually. I did have it replaced once, but I consider it to be the new incarnation of my old one. It's Trigger's iPod. Exactly. The iPod of Theseus. Exactly. As far as I'm concerned, it's the same iPod that I've had. It's an iPod classic. One of the old ones with a big rotary dial thing. And it's got massive memory, bigger than any memory on modern day so-called iPods. But of course, they don't really make iPods anymore. What they do is they make phones. And really, an iPod is just a phone with the phone bit taken out. And so I'm really loyal to my iPod, which of course never goes down, which is more likely to be said for Spotify and other streaming services. This is all my own music that I control, goes with me. And it's all there. And it works brilliantly. Well, it doesn't work that well. To be honest, the play button stopped working. So you now have to know there's work arounds to make it stop and start. There's other routes to get it to play. But the point is, I love it, but I hate Apple, partly because they stopped making them. But also because they seem to just be so smug as a brand. So there's an interesting quandary. There's a thing where I really like the product that they made, but I really dislike the brand. And then there are other brands which I feel like I really love them as a company. And Marmite, HP Sauce, Pot Noodle, all cliches, but they're all brands which I do feel attachment to. Okay, so what's going on? Yeah, no. Well, first of all, I think

Speaker A: 00:03:26

there's a crossover here or contradiction sometimes between brand loyalty and product loyalty, right? Because you're really loyal to your iPod, right? However, one of the things you mentioned there is what annoys you is the smugness of the brand, right? And before we came on air, we were having a tiff, right? Oh, what, you and me? Yeah. Unthinkable. What was it about this time? And I accused you of being contrarian, right? And I think this sort of feeds into this, not just yourself, a lot of other people, the reason why they hate Apple is because they're quite contrarian. Apple are? No, the people who don't like Apple can be quite contrarian. And it's, you know, there's this big, beautiful product. Isn't it amazing? This brand is quite sort of... Messianic. Yeah, messianic. There you go. And evangelising. And it's a kind of reaction against that, maybe. But I definitely want to come on to the brands. I definitely want to come to Chris. But just really briefly, one thing, because I do use a lot of Apple products, but one thing that annoys me is I don't particularly care about them that much. But what does annoy me is people like you who just moan about Apple all the time and moan at people like me. I've not moaned about it once. Anyway, let's pick up what you were saying about your brands. And then we'll try and swiftly move on to Chris and go from there. Maybe sort of do a

Speaker B: 00:04:52

quick... Well, I don't mind if we go on to Chris, to be honest, because I feel like I've got a list of brands, but they might want to come later. Okay. Anything to add at this stage, Chris?

Speaker C: 00:05:01

Well, I think just sort of thinking in terms of brand loyalty and trying to unpick a little bit what it actually is, I think historically it's often just been reduced to purchasing behaviour. What things do you purchase yourself? Do you own? Do you regularly purchase? But I think it's a lot broader than that. And as we've talked about, there's an emotional aspect to it. And quite a lot of the research into brand loyalty, subsequent sort of models of what brand loyalty is have expanded beyond this idea of just what do you buy towards looking at a more multidimensional approach. So, for example, you can have brand loyalty without having ever bought anything from a company. So if you take Ferrari, for example, right? Most people sort of go, oh, I love Ferraris, right? But they don't own a Ferrari. And most supporters of the slightly different thing, but supporters of the Ferrari Formula One team, they don't have Ferraris. They don't regularly buy. I'm sure they'd love to buy one if they could afford one. So it's not necessarily just about buying.

Speaker B: 00:06:25

That reminds me of being, remember at school where you'd have arguments about, oh, Lamborghinis are better than Ferraris. And it was based on what was on the top chumps cards.

Speaker C: 00:06:35

Yeah, that's right. Or your matchbox.

Speaker A: 00:06:38

Yeah, exactly. But presumably there's still an interest from those brands in making you loyal to them. And they want you to buy stuff like perfume or something from them.

Speaker C: 00:06:49

Yeah. So I guess they then have to, yeah, or posters or coats or whatever. But it's this idea that, you know, I mean, for example, you can inherit brand loyalty, right? I mean, my, when I was a kid in the 80s, we had Volvos, right? I never bought a Volvo in my life, but I feel sort of well disposed towards the brand of Volvo, you know, and that's kind of my parents' purchasing behavior. That's kind of, you know, I've learned behavior, really. So, and, you know, maybe one day I will buy a Volvo and that'll have worked for the Swedes. But yeah, so it's not just necessarily about buying things over and over again. There are broader elements to it. And, you know, one particular model from Shethan Park looks at kind of breaking it down into three different elements. I think this is quite instructive and quite interesting. They talk about, I mean, first of all, you know, in terms of defining brand loyalty, what it is, it's about a sort of, you know, a positive biased tendency towards a branded or labeled alternative, you know, service or product or whatever it is. But they talk about there being these three components, the emotive aspect of brand loyalty or the emotive tendency, which is do you like or dislike, right? So Nick obviously dislikes Apple in some way. I think you're ambivalent perhaps, or, you know, you don't have a strong view, but you buy their products, right? So one aspect of brand loyalty is emotive. What is your emotional response towards it? But that's not the only aspect of brand loyalty. You know, there's also then evaluative, which might be where your view of Apple comes in, where you think, well, they're the best goods, right? But what brand loyalty is trying to do is bias your evaluative process, right? So sort of make you think, ah, it's got an Apple badge on it. It's better than it actually is, right? So they're trying to...

Speaker B: 00:09:14

Better than all those other things made by the same people in the same factory.

Speaker C: 00:09:17

Exactly. And then the last one, which is what presumably the companies are really trying to drive, is the behavioural one, right? Which is do you buy it or do you consume it? I mean, kids don't buy stuff, right, by and large, but they might have a real brand loyalty towards Frosties or, you know, Cocoa Pops or whatever. They're both Kelloggs. Yeah. Well, there you go. Divide and rule. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. False diversification in the market. But I think that's quite an interesting sort of prism through which to look at brand loyalty, that it's not just about buying stuff. It's multifaceted. And ultimately, you know, the companies care about getting you to buy stuff. But there are other aspects that, you know, which is the emotional bit, which I think our listener was kind of referring to, which is why are people so irrational and emotionally attach themselves to products? And that's the question maybe we can start to have a think about.

Speaker A: 00:10:18

Well, yeah. Well, before you do, I've got part of an answer, which I don't think was covered there in those points, which is we've not talked about identity. I mean, it feeds into all those three things, but it's a bit like, you know, what we see in our friends is probably what we aspire, often what we aspire to in ourselves, or even if it was something complementary, let's say. And I think it's the same with brands, right?

Speaker B: 00:10:41

Right. I was just thinking, actually, if it was a person, what would they be like? And I sort of think Apple- I bet it is. But an Apple would be like an annoying, good-looking, flashy guy who turns up at the party and everyone seems to like them. And you just can't understand. You can't understand why everyone seems to like this guy.

Speaker C: 00:11:03

But you are definitely, I would say you are definitely the kind of person, this plays into Fraser's point, who would see somebody good-looking and popular and without having spoken to them, dislike them, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker B: 00:11:17

So good-looking, popular people are really annoying. Yeah. That's why everyone dislikes you, Nick. That's the reason why.

Speaker C: 00:11:24

You're right. You've rumbled. You've rumbled my essential. But this comparison, I think, is really interesting because ultimately, right, brand loyalty is just a form of loyalty, right? And where does loyalty come from psychologically? Well, it comes from allegiance and identity, as you said, around family groups, which, you know, then bleeds out to tribes, which eventually bleeds out to nation states and all of these other things that we then conflate it with, like political parties, religious groups, brands, football teams, all that, you know, and that's what they're trying to... That's what they're trying to hack, yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: 00:12:05

So, you know, it might start out with Heinz Beans, but it ends with World War III. Yes. If you take it too far.

Speaker A: 00:12:11

Well, and in fact, some of the biggest arguments are exactly over this kind of thing, like Heinz versus I don't know what, but sorry.

Speaker B: 00:12:17

Well, yeah, the sort of big enders versus the little enders. But well, okay. So, I mean, I think, first of all, does it exist? I mean, obviously, we're talking like it exists, but as always with business type stuff, it's very hard to find out, you know, precisely, well, get any decent data really. But according to various bits of survey evidence I've seen, apparently 60% of people are loyal, in inverted commas, to one to five brands. That feels about right to me. But the interesting thing there is that's about the same number of like really good close friends that people have, for example. It's definitely in that ballpark. Nobody's really loyal to 500 brands. You know, it's like people have only got enough space for loyalty to quite a small number of brands.

Speaker C: 00:13:06

It's almost self-defining, isn't it? Because if you're loyal, it's a bit like saying, well, I'm faithful to my, you know, harem of a thousand partners or something. It's like-

Speaker B: 00:13:16

Yeah, it's like having a loyalty card to every single major supermarket. You think, well, it's not really a loyalty card, is it? But anyway, apparently two thirds of people would join a loyalty programme for a brand. And over half said that they would spend more on the brand even if there are cheaper options elsewhere. And then just under half, 46% in this KPMG survey said they would remain loyal even after a bad experience with a company, which I think is interesting. And that touches on, I think, the behavioural element of what Chris is talking about, which I think is that even though we experience it as emotive, in practice, what loyalty means is a willingness to undertake some sort of cost to benefit someone else, right? I mean, if it isn't that, it's just a transaction. Like it doesn't exist. If I'm not willing to go slightly out of my way to help Heinz or, you know, or Amazon or whatever, because I'm loyal, if I'm not going out of my way to help them, quite apart from just buying their stuff, that's not the same thing. Buying their stuff is just a transaction. We both benefit. It's buying their stuff, but also undertaking a cost, recommending it to family and friends, going there, even if you actually think other options are better or cheaper or more effective. And yeah, giving them free publicity, wearing their T-shirt, all of those things, I guess, which are kind of manifestations of loyalty. And I think, well, I mean, we might get on to when does this become a bad thing, but

Speaker A: 00:14:55

I mean, it just strikes me. I do quite like this is quite Aleph-y, thinking about, you know, the actual name Aleph and why that exists, because, you know, this comes back, as do so many of our things, this all comes down to, you know, one thing or links, right? And a lot of the time we do talk about, I don't know, tell me if I'm wrong or not. I mean, we do talk about psychology a lot, I think. And it just does. And it does come down to decision making and sometimes irrational decision making. Are we ready to talk about our brands yet? Or do we want to keep going?

Speaker B: 00:15:28

Well, I just wanted to touch on what the business press seems to believe is key to driving brand loyalty. And obviously, this is something that marketing wankers want to do. They want to get people to be loyal to their brand. Not, as you or I might think, by making the best products for the cheapest price. No. Some of the things, so the latest thinking, it seems to be in the marketing world, that it's to do with value alignment. So how can you- Value alignment. Oh, yeah. You've got to, so they recommend doing things like supporting charities that align with the values of your customer base, for example, that kind of thing. But also finding- This sort of makes me vomit a bit. By the way, this is the world that I live in, the one that makes you vomit. Keep going. Find new ways to be part of an important and ongoing dialogue. I don't even know what that means, but keep going. Well, and then, so again, according to KPMG, all of this data is shaky as hell. But the key drivers are quality, 74%, highest driver of brand loyalty, value for money, consistency. That's an interesting one. When we think about the sort of loyalty to things like, we might want to talk about the new Coke thing, because that was an interesting case study. But like when there's been backlashes and things against things happening to brands, that tells you a lot about what's driving things. But also, then it's a bunch of things like customer service and ease of shopping and all that. All of those sound like things that are just, well, this is a good product, right? So I don't really believe that. And looking inward to myself, before we get onto the brands, which we probably have a relationship with, I think I value honesty from a company more than anything else. That is definitely going to drive me to be loyal to them. So things like Gregg's have a very good social media policy. They're not pretending to be a hipster, artisanal bakery. They know what they are. And they're perfectly happy to be that thing. Get your cheap, stodgy, lovely, tasty food from us. Exactly. And I think that's true of, you know, obviously, if you have better products, you can afford to be more honest, I think. Didn't work for Ratners, though, did it? No, I mean, again, yeah, really interesting because of a mismatch between, you know, if their brand had been about we're cheap but cheerful, then I think that would have been fine. But it was that mismatch between the brand. But yeah, I mean, so and I guess that sort of makes it hard. If you're trying to be a smug, high class sort of brand, it's harder to do that, I think. Like, you've got to pull, like, for example, you can love, you could love Terry's chocolate orange in a way that you couldn't love green and blacks. And I can't really explain why. Yeah, I think you're on something there.

Speaker C: 00:18:23

Or if you did, it would say something very, or other people would be very judgmental. Yeah, you're quite a git, basically. Like people who go on about Farrow & Ball paint.

Speaker A: 00:18:33

Yeah. Yeah, good point. Which shade of pigeon shit grey would you like? Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, Chris, pick us up.

Speaker C: 00:18:41

Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I think, so I think so far, we've talked about this idea of cost to the self, right? And of irrationality or not necessarily irrationality, but an emotive aspect to it. And, and that's driving brand loyalty. But I also think there's a rationalist bit to brand loyalty, which is about the reduction of cognitive effort associated with, with decision making, you know, you only have to go and compare the market.com to, you know, change your car insurance or something to go on, you know, the diversification in the market is massive. The amount of effort spent trying to identify the optimal option for you is huge and probably not worth the cost. So if you if you find something that's good, and you have trust in the brand, and it was good before it, it just makes sense to roll that over, right. And to continue with that, that, that customer, there's also an aspect which is like repeated buying, right? You know, I mean, and this is where things like loyalty schemes, or vouchers, or, you know, buy 400, get one free, kind of all those offers work in that, if you're buying repeatedly, you've got more purchasing power, and you can get better, better deals for yourself. So I, so I think there's actually also an aspect to brand loyalty. And all of those things that Nick talked about those, those four points that KPMG came up with were all, you know, rational things, right? They were about, okay, you can identify it's high quality. You know, you've had good experience with it before. Well, then that that's what you do, you know, and then you then you all you have to think cognitively is, oh, I trust the brand. I'll just buy from there. Again, you don't have to think about the individual products. And you know, is the latest version better than the previous version, and so on. So

Speaker A: 00:20:34

okay, we're getting to the point where we need to think about wrapping things up. There's, I definitely, of course, want to talk about our brand loyalty, our brand loyalties. But before we do anywhere, anything you want to move on to first,

Speaker B: 00:20:47

Nick first, then maybe Chris. Yeah, got to cut. So, so obviously, we've been talking about the rational aspects of it and the emotive aspects of it. I guess there's nothing, you wouldn't say that, you know, being feeling emotional was irrational as such. You know, there's nothing irrational about really liking a brand, to the extent that, you know, it might be that you actually just get additional pleasure from using that brand. For some reason, it doesn't matter. The point is, if you do get pleasure out of it, it makes sense for you to sort of pay extra to have that, have that brand, right. But at the same time, it is perfectly possible for there to be a bunch of cognitive biases associated with our relationship to brand, which we might want to think about when we're making those decisions, so that we can try and avoid them. And when I say avoid them, I mean, avoid basically being ruthlessly exploited by marketers, which is obviously one of my main aims in life. But so a few things, which occurred to me, there's the halo effect, which is basically if someone has one good feature, people will tend to assume that their other features are good too. So if someone's good looking, people assume that they're more likely to be intelligent, more likely to be better at, you know, things. And this would crop up in, for example, if you like, you know, if you, Apple things come in really nice boxes, very high quality boxes. And the experience of opening, they put a special smell in it, so that when you open it, there's a nice smell. Do they? Yeah. Oh, they're brilliant at that. Naturally, you assume that were you to open up a Apple electronic device, you'd have the same experience. There's that feeling of like, well, this is a very high quality box, ergo, the product must be high quality.

Speaker A: 00:22:28

Are you sure about this? That sounds like an urban myth or something that you found on some dodgy website somewhere saying, Apple, did you know they put smells in the boxes?

Speaker B: 00:22:36

No, they do. I think that's widely known. Well, I do. But it is known. Okay. I mean, to be honest, I've got it in my head, but I can't give you a source. But I wouldn't say, it doesn't, I don't find it remotely surprising.

Speaker C: 00:22:53

Next time you open an Apple box. I opened up one the other day. Just poise there like you're scenting a fine wine or something and see if anything emerges.

Speaker B: 00:23:02

No, I don't think it's controversial or a conspiracy theory. I just think that's well known that they make things smell nice.

Speaker A: 00:23:09

That's what people who purport conspiracy theories say. But anyway, keep going.

Speaker B: 00:23:14

Okay, but you don't deny that they put new car smell in new cars, because that's true. I didn't know that was true. Yeah, that's true. New car smell is entirely made up now. It used to be what cars used to smell of before they used modern materials. And now they put new car smell in. Yes. I've been, I'm a babe in the woods. Right. So basically halo effect, nice smell, high quality product. Well, watch out for that. Okay. Just, you know, it's easy. In other words, it's easy to have a nice box. It doesn't mean that the product's any good. And it doesn't mean that Nick is a poor quality product. Yeah, exactly. If anything, the opposite. Then we have the endowment effect. Again, something which is really hard for us to fight against. But it's basically if you've bought something, you're then inclined to try and find reasons why it's worth more. So this would cut, you know, if you, it's quite a big outlay normally, if you buy an, you know, an Apple or another kind of, you know, MP3 player, whatever, it's going to cost you a few hundred quid, maybe. And at that point, the point you made that purchase, you don't really want to find out that you made the wrong choice. And that is really prevalent, you know, so people tend to ascribe higher value to the things that they bought because it's so hard to avoid this one. You really don't, you know, when you bought a new product and you look online and you can see a bad review, you're like, oh, that guy's an idiot. And you watch out for that. And then there's also this relational models thing, which we occasionally refer to, which is that, you know, there are different ways that people can interact with each other in groups, right? Different models. So you have like communal sharing, which is what you tend to have in families where you just stick stuff in the fridge. And you know, you, you, you will eat it. No one really minds. Authority ranking where basically you get things because the boss gives you stuff that's kind of typical. Equality matching, which is where you're kind of trying to, trying to keep tabs on making sure it's like if you're splitting the bill or something. What's this got to do with brand loyalty? Get into that. And finally, market pricing, which is the most sort of emotionally distanced. You give me some money, I give you a thing. Market people, marketing people and in general, in general, like your experience when you have an experience, generally firms want you to think you're in a communal sharing environment because that's like being at home in a family and you're comfortable with it, right? Even if you're not. So, so in other words, restaurants, you know, want to make you feel like you're at home having a nice dinner. They don't, they don't go on and on about the price. It's almost a bit embarrassing when the bill comes out. And what I'm saying is that firms want to fool you into thinking you're in a communal sharing relationship and not a market pricing. And you've all got one another's best interests. Yeah, exactly. Like they care about you. You care about them. You know, you're giving them some money. They're giving you an iPod rather than a cold, harsh market transaction. So just don't fall for it. Yeah. And final question, really, which you should ask yourself is if you're loyal to this brand, how would they be loyal to you? How does their loyalty to you manifest itself? Do they, do they come around to your house and do your gardening? Do they give you a special discount because you're you? No. Well, maybe they do. Maybe they do. And actually, you know, I swear. Well, the people who make HP sauce have never been around to my house to do the garden.

Speaker C: 00:26:36

No, but they've probably had little things. They did. Little paper offers around the top saying, you know, 25p off your next bottle. You probably never spotted them.

Speaker B: 00:26:46

Yeah, but someone who's literally the first time they've ever bought HP sauce could have the same offer. I want something that reflects. Oh, but they've got no way of tracking how much. Well, there you go. So if they're not capable of being loyal to me, I'm not going to go out

Speaker A: 00:26:59

my way to be loyal to them. Well, come on, Chris. But if Steve Jobs turned up to do my lawn, first of all, I'd be quite surprised that he's alive. Yeah. But second, I would be freaked out, you know, if someone from HP sauce came over to your place and said, hello, Mr. Hare, we've noticed that you've been very loyal to us for a number of years. And just to say thank you, we're going to cut your hedge for you. You would send them packing. I'd be cock a hoop. I would not. I'd be cock a hoop and I'd never stop buying HP sauce. Hey, any marketers out there, they should listen to this.

Speaker B: 00:27:30

Come round to my house and do the hedge and hey, presto.

Speaker A: 00:27:32

Yeah. Let's move this along. We've really got to move along with this. Chris,

Speaker C: 00:27:36

I was just going to say that actually there are there are efforts to engender that two way loyalty and, you know, loyalty schemes are a good example of that. And they date back to the 18th century when they used to hand out copper tokens, you know, that you could then discount against future purchases. And so that's obviously long been recognised that actually you want to build that up. But I'm quite interested in the idea of when it when it works against us, you know, and under what circumstances. So brand loyalty, like I said, it's got it's got lots of pros. And if you get if you get emotional benefit from it, as well as practical benefits of not having to think as hard and getting a more reliable, decent product that you are happy with, then it works well. But when doesn't it work for us? And that's presumably when we get fobbed off with a not very good deal, you know, very good product or poor customer services, but we go back again. And that really does then come down to the loyalty aspect of how long you will, you know, put up with poor service or a poor product before you move, you know, you move suppliers. And it's a little bit like, you know, obviously, some people, you know, remain in abusive relationships, or, you know, kind of adhere to a religion or a political ideology, even when they realise half of it's pretty sinister, and they don't like it, but they, you know, the other bits they do. So, yeah, that's, that's quite an interesting sort of, I guess, another thing to probably would be the best measure of brand loyalty, actually, if you could somehow, you know, manufacture it would be how much crap you prepared to put up with before you move and cancel your brand loyalty. It kind of goes to the heart of it, doesn't it?

Speaker A: 00:29:30

Yeah, absolutely. Let's wrap this up. And of course, you know, the elephant in the room that we need to talk about is what brands are we loyal to? Right? So let's do it. Yeah, well,

Speaker B: 00:29:40

actually, it's interesting, Chris has just proposed a way of thinking about brands, which neatly summarises some of the things that I was going to mention at this point. But I'll get to that

Speaker A: 00:29:48

when we get to me. By the way, yeah, we're not so different you and I. Oh, hello. Because when you were talking about, I think you were saying, you know, how you think of yourself and what you look for, you talked about integrity and honesty. Now, I think a lot of people would say that about them, what how they think of themselves and what they think of others, or they look for in others and friends. But I don't think they're always right about that. But I think you are right. And I think I'm like that as well. Like I said, I think maybe everyone would make a brilliant buddy cop. Yeah. Integrity is a really important value. It really is something that I look for a lot. So are we sorry, you were about to say something we read to talk about the brands or you want to come later? Should I kick off? Yeah. So brands I'm loyal to. I've jotted down a few you guys and I'm sure been thinking about this loads. I've only just started thinking about it. The big one for me is Canon, who are manufacturers of many things, but in my case, cameras and lenses. I'm I would say I'm very loyal to them. Apple. I've got a lot of Apple products. A lot of it bought for me by my work. But still, I do. I am loyal to them. I would say McDonald's. I'm very loyal to McDonald's. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And that goes back to this consistency thing. I think as well. I just know it's going to be exactly what it is. And as I think I've said before, when you buy when you go to McDonald's, you're not buying a hamburger. Do you feel emotionally attached to that? No, not really. No. I think it is interesting, though,

Speaker C: 00:31:13

that when you see the golden arches, do you do you feel a void? Yeah, a little buzz. Well,

Speaker B: 00:31:19

there you go. Yeah. Yeah. So you are emotionally. Yeah, I'm emotionally attached. But it is interesting, though, that I remember finding out that a lot of Americans are loyal to McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. But it surprised me because I think in Britain they're seen as examples of rapacious capitalism and how you couldn't really love brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald's. But of course, they're American brands. It makes sense that Americans will feel attached to those in the same way we do to things like McVitie's.

Speaker A: 00:31:46

Yeah, exactly. And talking McVitie's, only got a couple more. Jacob's Jacob or Jacob's Cream Crackers. Yes. So there is a good example. I will go out of my way and make sacrifices and pay more to have Jacob Cream Crackers because they are the best. The thin scraping of butter. Yeah, exactly. Fortnum and Mason. I almost never buy from them. But I would say I'm I, you know,

Speaker B: 00:32:10

their marketing material, which I get every year because I actually use them is rich inducing. Is it? Oh, it's so it's like so aspirational. I really. Yeah. It's kind of this wonderful one. It's all trying to make out that you can live this perfect Nigella style, you know, upper middle class lifestyle. You spend, you know, 80 pounds on a couple of slices of salmon from them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this definitely fits with me. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:32:34

If I'm not. Yeah. Probably the big thing. Pubs. Now, a proper pub. He's a Weatherspoons guy. Yeah. Looks like a Weatherspoons guy. 9am in the morning. Yeah. With my bulldog. Yeah. Yeah. Pubs like a proper good pub. And I know you're into your pubs as well. A nice pub. Now, obviously that's not really a brand, but but but there it is. Well, an individual like if you go back to yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's what's the ideal pub called? The Moon Underwater.

Speaker B: 00:33:03

That's why that's why spoons use that as their name for lots of their pubs. I do that. I didn't

Speaker A: 00:33:10

know that. Obviously, I knew about the Orwell essay, but not about the Weatherspoons thing.

Speaker C: 00:33:16

Chris. Yeah. So for me, I think the things I am loyal about M&S Simply Food. Um, so I just love going in there. I like buying they've got great. We're both aspirational. I'm just more aspirational, maybe with Fortnum and Mason. Yeah, but it's not that I sort of I cover some lifestyle that they offer. It's like their stuff is just great. You think you don't cover the lifestyle? Yeah, I don't know what an M&S Simply Food lifestyle would would be. But it's not just any. I'm looking at it. Yeah. Full of Percy pigs and chocolate

Speaker B: 00:33:55

primarily the same products as elsewhere, but with a St. Michael label on or have they stopped? No, no, no. I mean, like, I don't mean I don't mean their home goods. I mean,

Speaker C: 00:34:01

their fruit basically. Their their their apples are better. Their grapes are better. Yeah. Yeah. OK. And they're more expensive anyway. But I've also got a soft spot at the other end of the supermarket market for ripped off Aldi crisps where they they basically reverse engineer frazzles, you know, and stuff like that. And they and and I'm like, that's that's really clever. And oh, yeah, these are imperceptibly, you know, or if anything, probably got more additives. Yeah, exactly. I think I think the dust is saltier and it's got more monosodium glutamate. This just makes me want to go out and buy a packet of frazzles or the knocked off empty, empty, empty the crisps out and then just dig at the dust. Anyway. But the final thing is probably Adidas football boots. Right. I can't play football anymore because I'm broken, but my daughter does play play football. And I recently bought her. Specifically, it's their old fashioned boots, this boot called removable studs. Well, these are moulded studs. Right. They have a 70s 70s. Basically, I think Beckenbauer wore this boot, right. The Copa Mundial. And my daughter is 10. She's size three and a half shoes. She's probably going to go through them in, you know, three or four months or something. Doesn't matter. I just I just bought a hundred and twenty pound

Speaker A: 00:35:29

pair of football boots. Wow. You're not quite the rational automaton that I thought you were. No,

Speaker B: 00:35:35

Chris. No. Although Beckenbauer was a rational automaton. He was. He was. He was. Nick. Right. So top of my list. This is this is loyalty where I feel like there is a good, healthy relationship to me and the brand. Yes. Mitsubishi Pencil Company Uniball Micro Pen, which I'm using. You're using a stolen one from me. No, no, no. I know. I buy loads of these. Right. I mean, they are the only pen in the world which which I will use by preference. They're incredible consistency. Perfect. Perfect line. So easy to write with. Never go wrong. They're absolutely amazing. I find them smudgy. Are you left handed? No. No, you're a weirdo then because they're too inky. No, you're using them wrong. I agree. They're a great pen to hold. The only thing I could do maths with is one of these pens. But the point is that they themselves are very cold and unfeeling as a company. I've sent them emails saying, I love your pens. And all I want is a reply. I don't want free pens. I just want to say, I'm glad you like our pens, but nothing. I never get anything back. But I don't care because they're so good at making

Speaker C: 00:36:39

pens that that speaks for itself. The thing on top of the lid is a definite choke hazard.

Speaker B: 00:36:43

I know you've both lost. No, I chew mine off. Just throw those straight away. You mentioned local restaurants. Yamaha Pianos is another one. I absolutely love mine. And particularly because I like the fact that they're kind of engineered rather than they're not the result of centuries of tradition making pianos. You know, Yamaha said, right, how do we make pianos? And they

Speaker A: 00:37:04

just went and did it. I've got the Audi version of one of those. It's not from Audi, but I've got knockoff Japanese one that looks like Yamaha, but isn't. But there's also brands that I use a lot,

Speaker B: 00:37:14

but hate. Right. So I think top of those is Amazon. I really dislike them as a brand. I don't know why, because I use them all the time. But they're just so good that I can't. That feels like I'm in an abusive relationship with them. Yes. I'm somehow tied to them. Yes. And I have to keep using. Similarly, Google, actually, like even though I like their products or their services. They make you feel dirty. Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like being beholden to Google. Again, feels a bit. But there's also these brands that I have a kind of weird love-hate relationship with, which I think it's on the phrase production. No, that's consistent. Love it. Okay. Microsoft, actually, even though I kind of love Microsoft, but I hate their products really annoy me. But I love, I actually like them as a company. I like the fact that they make sort of slightly shonky products. Craft Ale brands. I like, again, like the products, but usually dislike the branding. Too hoppy, usually. But anyway. Just running with that model of, you know, this, the relationship we have with brands is a bit like a relationship with people. There you go. That's a bunch of different relationship types that I'm in with different

Speaker A: 00:38:27

brands. Yeah. It's complicated. Yeah. I think that's what is at the heart of all this. It's really brands are just another person. That's what it is. Even if they're not, that's how we think

Speaker C: 00:38:39

about them. Right. Yeah. And we don't rationally assess people all the time, whether we should maintain a friendship with somebody. You are their friend, right?

Speaker A: 00:38:49

Exactly. Or not in the case of YouTube. Exactly that. Exactly that. All right. Let's stop there. Thank you. Oh, by the way. Well, first of all, thank you very much to Helga. Yeah. For putting this our way. I feel this is definitely one of those ones where we've done a pretty good job of working it over. I will let history be the judge. Well, I hope Helga remains loyal to us. But thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.