WillHutson

While shaving this morning, I noticed the brand name Gillette on my razor. Nothing particularly special about that but I suddenly remembered the first time I actively engaged with the brand. It was the very first day at university back in Belgium. All freshmen were given a welcome goodie bag with a variety of products targeted at this specific and interesting demographic. There were a number of products included of which I remember a pack of condoms, a soda can, a newspaper, a pop culture magazine and a starter kit from Gillette with a razor, a set of blades and shaving cream. I’m not sure if I started shaving regularly before that day but what I can remember is that I’ve been using Gillette exclusively since that day. I realized that there are not many other offline brands I’ve been as loyal to as Gillette, certainly not for more than ten years. Another more recent (5-10 years) brand would perhaps be Apple hardware. This got me thinking about our loyalty to web services: are we loyal to web services we use? If so, are we because we haven’t found a better alternative or because we’re locked (in a positive way) in to the network-heavy services (Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter)? Does brand loyalty in this day and age still exists in general (offline or online) or do we live in such a competitive environment in which we go for the cheapest, the most-feature rich, most hip or settle for the commodity?