In class we talked about "when you buy something, what are u really buying?" This made me think immediately about the need for designer brands. Sure you can say the designer jeans fit better then generic, or that designer purses and earrings are just "better quality" but that is often not really your purpose. When you wear these designer brands it is often the identity that you want to portray. Perhaps you want to be seen as classy, confident or wealthy. People often go to great lengths to appear to have the designer brand even when they don't. There is a store that i have been to before called Last Chance in Arizona that sells the returned items from Nordstroms at a very discounted rate. They will have juicy zip-ups for like 25 dollars, however even at that price it is hard to find the good stuff because people will come in and steal the little "J" zippers off the coats to put on their jacket at home. Although it seems crazy, i guess it really is that "feel good" response you get when you look the part that your want.
In class we discussed the market share matrix and compared the different categories to types of cars. So for my blog this week I thought I would come up with my own examples and hope that they are right. SOOO for my STAR I have the Panasonic brand to represent the Panasonic Plasma TV. Although there are a small amount of companies that make plasmas, I considered it a high growth rate market because everyone and everywhere has TVs and Panasonic is number one in plasmas. My cash cow is the Titleist Pro V 1 golf balls. In the low growth market of golf balls the Pro V 1 is a top ball not only within the titleist brand but of all brands and types. My Question Mark is the Cadillac Escalade because it is is in the high growth rate of vehicles but the product has come to be a miss in todays economy. Last but not least I have a portable CD player as my Dog. Peoples only listen to CDs on their Car stereo or in a Boom box, but even that is becoming uncommon.
