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The Brand Age

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Brand Age

#221

Post by widowlark »

benleejamin wrote: post #42

I don't think the Brand Age is as bleak as this essay suggests. Branding is not inherently unproductive, nor is it guaranteed to produce worse watches. They may be larger and less accurate , but consumers still (evidently) find value in the brand. A Grand Seiko or a Nomos or a Patek is perhaps now even more interesting & identity-productive than a watch was in the 60s. As technologists I think we're prone to dismissi…

I took pg's point to mean that just because consumers see value in the purchase, that is not the same thing as the purchase being valuable - the race changed from 'provide the best function/value for the thing' to 'provide the most differentiated value to the consumer as an identity' and that is, for the most part, less useful.

Re: The Brand Age

#222

Post by widowlark »

hammock wrote: post #210
armchairhacker wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I got from the essay: "brand is the only way to beat competition when you can't significantly beat them on quality". It's basically the market suffering from success. You can buy a cheap quality watch today. For some product types there is no better alternative, like ISPs. But I'd argue this is because of monopoly, which is different from brand. Most monopolies (like ISPs) usually have negative brands, and there…

So the cutting edge things are happening in places where brand doesn’t matter. I could think of better examples but moldbot/clawdworld comes to mind. Or ASML, or national lab physics, or cheap attack drones, or.. idk can anyone think of better examples? And “brand age” (as a broad moniker) is another way of saying innovation has stagnated.

innovation has stagnated because businesses have driven us to stagnation. Very few businesses provide any real value - the ones that do are running circles around everyone else - given the lack of ability, businesses turns to other, less useful methods of prying our money away from us and largely succeed because consumers are gullible and malleable.

Re: The Brand Age

#223

Post by bigstrat2003 »

alexpotato wrote: post #212

I've been reading Rory Sutherland's book Alchemy and it's full of fascinating insights about marketing/branding etc Case in point: - company was testing out their mail based fundraising drive - they randomly tested cheap vs expensive envelopes, regular envelopers vs side opening envelopes etc for how people could send back a check - they found that expensive envelopes beat cheap and side envelopes beat top loading Th…

Similarly, when I was a teenager I knew a guy who built guitars by hand. He is a master craftsman who makes beautiful instruments, but he told me one time that he had customers sometimes lose interest because his guitars were cheaper than similar competitors (5k vs 10k as I recall). He wound up raising his prices, and got more sales as a result, even though the guitars hadn't changed at all. It was a really interesting (and to me, bizarre) demonstration of how people can make decisions very irrationally at times.

Re: The Brand Age

#224

Post by LoganDark »

widowlark wrote: post #219
dworks wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main point can be put a little more clearly: it is not just that we are willing to pay for the brand experience and the marketing that builds it, but we actively want to pay for it. Macbook Neo customers want Apple to put out creative product marketing videos, they believe it is part of the offer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3SIKAmPXY4

I have to disagree - I have seen the video, and I also have ordered the product, but the marketing isn't what sold me, and I don't see any evidence that the marketing is what is responsible for people's desire of the product. It's affordable in a world where all prices are increasing everywhere. That's my theory on why people want this product.

It's also just a good product for the price. My only real gripe is the non-haptic trackpad.

Re: The Brand Age

#226

Post by bigstrat2003 »

garethsprice wrote: post #114
jgrahamc wrote: post #14

" Because at Patek he'd encounter the most extreme brand age phenomenon: artificial scarcity. You can't just buy a Nautilus. You have to spend years proving your loyalty first by buying your way through multiple tiers of other models, and then spend years on a waiting list. " Strange game, the only winning move is not to play. I've heard other brands do this (Ferrari?) and, of course, there are lines outside "luxury"…

Humans are status-seeking creatures, and status is expressed through signaling. If you're rich and so are the people around you, money alone ceases to be a differentiator. Ultra-luxury brands appeal to this by adding hoops that money alone can't clear: time, loyalty, relationships. The signal shifts from "I can afford this" to "I was invited to spend my money here." Lines outside Louis Vuitton are more down-market, a…

> Of course, PG writing an essay about being too smart for fancy watches - while knowing a lot about them - is its own signaling game, just aimed at a different audience

So you're saying that everyone seeks status, and even the people who say they don't are seeking status by not seeking status? That argument seems like you are overreaching. What, then, would you consider evidence that falsifies your theory?

Re: The Brand Age

#227

Post by mcdeltat »

socalgal2 wrote: post #215

I actually dislike most "branding", by which I mean, I dislike when the name/logo of the brand is on the product itself. I get that puts me in the minority. For me, partly because I don't want to be seen as showing off and partly because I feel like if you want me to advertise your brand then you should be paying me, not the me paying you. And, once noticed, it's on so many products I wish it wasn't. The sink in my b…

Yeah I feel completely the same and largely do not understand when people are obsessed with branding. I'm assuming it's some primitive brain social hierarchy stuff where we seek to have everything be stratified by social value.

Also I have a related point on consumerism. A lot of things don't really need a brand to begin with because there is little need for so many options. Like if you have to advertise your brand identity to me to have your product be a success, I generally assume your product is a solution in search of a proper problem. (Yes often they do solve problems, but I will argue many modern day problems are bullshit/fake.)

Re: The Brand Age

#228

Post by stingrae »

socalgal2 wrote: post #215

I actually dislike most "branding", by which I mean, I dislike when the name/logo of the brand is on the product itself. I get that puts me in the minority. For me, partly because I don't want to be seen as showing off and partly because I feel like if you want me to advertise your brand then you should be paying me, not the me paying you. And, once noticed, it's on so many products I wish it wasn't. The sink in my b…

I felt this way until I worked at Essential, the now shut down phone maker.

One of the core company design principles was to have minimal branding. The phone design had no logo. When you show it to people they are looking for the identifier and it's completely missing. When you are in a market where most of the products look largely the same, branding is very important.

It's unfortunate, but absolutely necessary.

Re: The Brand Age

#229

Post by JumpCrisscross »

boelboel wrote: post #84
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ego, of course This is so silly. Do you really not have any hobbies where you spend inordinate time or money on things you could objectively accomplish quicker and cheaper, but having less fun, in other ways? Like, I ski. It’s a silly way to get up and down a hill in the 21st century. I’m not a watch guy. But mechanical watches are beautiful. There are idiots who buy them. But that doesn’t mean everyone who does is…

Collecting watches isn't a hobby, it's pure consumerism. Sure many hobbies have (recently?) gotten way more people spending top dollars for no reason but with watch collecting there's nothing else. You're not tweaking the dials, you don't know how to make the watch, you just watch it and wear it while a technologically superior version is 500 times cheaper. There's also no natural shortage of them, they can make a tr…

> You're not tweaking the dials, you don't know how to make the watch, you just watch it and wear it while a technologically superior version is 500 times cheaper

This describes precisely zero watch enthusiasts I know. Each of them can open up the watch and understand what's happening. In one case, he'll disassemble the major components to clean them. (Analogous to how riders can take care of their horses and gear, or I can tune and wax my skis.)

Your dismissal could be just as accurately be applied to the various programming languages many of us learn for fun. We don't know how to write its compiler. We can barely do anything useful in it. We just play with it while a technologically-superior version would take a fraction of the effort.

> There's also no natural shortage of them, they can make a trillion of these watches

Quartz? Obviously. Aegler/Rolex? Probably. Handmade movements? No.

> At least with cars or audio equipment there's some marginal benefits once you get to crazy numbers, not the case with watches

As an enthusiast of neither cars nor watches, I call total bullshit on this comparison. Anyone arguing they're getting utility out of their Ferrarri, Pagani, Omega or Audemars is full of themselves.

Re: The Brand Age

#230

Post by xarope »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #24
creeble wrote: post #10

> So the only thing distinguishing one top brand from another was the name printed on the dial Respectfully disagree. Since the 60's (and one could argue, even long before that), watches are 1) fashion, and 2) male wealth-signaling fashion. That's it. Nothing more. And for males who subscribe to this wealth-signaling cult, they know from a long way away what watch brand is on that guy's wrist. Okay, today's brands si…

I entered this cult last year. It’s been super fun to spot and infer from a distance, as you say, these hidden signals that men have chosen to spend $20,000 to $120,000 on. G-Shock says “I do things that are so dangerous and so off the grid your Rolex or Apple Ultra would shatter and die”. And it’s true, out of my whole collection, that’s the one that will still be within a ms of true time 25 years after the power go…

my g-shock frogman is 10+ years old, still sits by the window, charging itself everyday (solar powered), and it's the watch I would grab if the proverbial hit the fan. I'd grab my self-winding analog jlc watch too, just in case I needed it as a bribe (not sure which would be better as a bribe if that happens, maybe the g-shock!)
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