Brand Snob

I was walking through Harvey Norman the other day, when a friend pointed out a "nice looking" fridge. I responded, "Yeah, but its not a Westinghouse", which earned me the label "brand snob".

Until last year, if you'd asked me the names of manufacturers of fridges, I would have said Fisher Paykel or Kelvinator. Westinghouse probably wouldn't have made the list. So what's changed since them to give me a sense of almost loyalty to a brand I've never even owned?

My first encounter with a Westinghouse fridge was during a short stay in Sydney. The apartment we stayed in had one of Westinghouse's new (at that time) stainless steel fridges.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how conventional advertising was ineffective, especially with my generation. We've been exposed to so much advertising that we've just become numb to it.

So, back to the fridge. Blue backlit LCD, buttons, blue lighting inside, wine rack. This fridge was made for me. Westinghouse has obviously done their market research, and knows exactly what their target market wants. Not only that, but they've managed to get excellent product placement (sure, this probably wasn't intentional).

This got me thinking: would this work for all home appliances? I can't seem to remember any TVs or microwaves in apartments I've stayed in. Then again, they didn't have blue LEDs. So, it seems to be the combination of market research and product placement. But would brands be willing to spend the money to give discounts to hotels etc just to have their appliance on show?