Branding

I know, I haven't been doing a very good job of blogging. I guess Twitter is winning out for me. But here's some rambling if you're looking for something to read.

I don't know if it's just me but I seem to be seeing a lot of blog posts, tweets, news articles, and whatever else focusing on market share, units sold comparisons, and other business type analysis. Of course these were always around but I normally felt they were the focus of guys in business suits who were financially invested in the companies or something like that. Now it seems like everyone's getting in on it. It makes me wonder why. And here's a few of the reasons I'm noticing.

Companies seem to be doing a really good job of getting people feeling like they're somehow connected to them and their success. Whether it's "I'm a Mac" or being a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society (showing how comics have been doing this for a while, Stan Lee seemed to be one of the ambassadors in that area) they're connecting with their customers (somewhat) and making them feel like the companies success is somehow their success as well. And if someone says something bad about the company or their product, even if they may be right, they'll fight tooth and nail to prove them wrong.

I feel others seem to rely on these things to justify themselves and their spending. Almost like "I must have made the right choice buying that iPhone because the majority is doing it, right?" It's not even a question of which product may be right for you. So you want to point to these things and say to anyone who didn't buy the same as you that they are somehow in the wrong because they aren't part of the majority.

Some are looking to see trends so they can maybe predict the future, and not always for financial gain. Some just want to be able to throw stuff out there so in a few months they can look at the new stats and say "See, I was right! I'm so smart!" And some just want to appear smart by looking at this and just saying the exact same thing that every other blog and tweet says about the data.

And I think the media is playing its part as well. They are falling in line with companies spouting phrases like "game changer", "the future is here", "this will change everything", etc, etc (or if you go with comic solicits it's "universe changing", "nothing will ever be the same", "the new status quo", etc, etc). And they want to appear cutting edge so they bring out data in bar graphs, pie charts, and cute little cartoons.

Of course there are many reasons behind it all but here's where I'm at. I'm done with looking at that stuff. I don't care if a comic or a phone is the big seller, I want the one that's right for me. I'm not going to feel ashamed or "wrong" if it's not the one everyone else bought. So all this talk of market share and units sold doesn't mean much to me. And I'm sort of tired of people focusing on it and throwing it around like it's proof of something other than a company was successful in getting their product (whether it be good or bad) into the most hands (good for them).

So yeah, when Marvel puts out a crappy book I'll say that I thought it was crap. When Apple decides to do stupid censoring of apps and their content I'll say I don't want to support that. But yeah, feel free to tell me that I'm wrong because the Marvel book I think is bad outsells everyone else and Apple sells more iPhones than its competitors, I just won't care.