Why have a brand loyalty?

You've heard me go on about my pet peeve about "brand fanboys".  Is that the same as having a brand loyalty?  No, but it's not hard to go from brand loyalty to brand fanboy.  Especially if someone is the hyper competitive type to begin with.

But as I was watching a VCG YouTube video recently,  Vince was talking about why "pros" depend on brand loyalty to begin with.   I couldn't help but to agree with his point.

When you are self employed, an owner or employee of a busy business, you don't always have time to rely on taking the time to make an in-depth analysis of a given tool to see if it's what you or your employees can use.

Brand loyalty allows you to use past experience and general trust to say if blank brand puts it out, it's for you.  This is a lot of what is behind Craftsman, Bosch,  Milwaukee,  etc...  these are all brands with an established brand loyalty base due to their customers general past experiences. 

These become knee-jerk "go-to" answers when it's time to make a tool purchase.  All of these brands also have played the brand fanboyism game as well.   A great many people who use tools in everyday work are also pretty competitive and enjoy being part of "Team Red", "Team Yellow", "Team Blue", etc...  It's mostly harmless, friendly competition. 

The annoying part is when the people with no personality outside collective association take it to stupid levels because their personality is an "all-in",  nothing else exists way of thinking. They ruin it for everyone else but usually are the loudest that get the attention of marketing and advertising types.

I've admitted my brand loyalties tend to tun towards the Bosch, Worx, and most nostalgically, Craftsman brands.  Other more specialized brand loyalties I've noticed I have personally are Starret and Diablo.

If it's a need-to-make-a-decision-now, knee-jerk choice, I go looking first at my pre-determined brand loyalties.   This is more true now with heavy investment in battery powered platforms.  Worx Nitro and Craftsman RP are the first places I look now.  

I'm not opposed to checking out other brands and lines.  Far from it.  I love playing with new tools and discovering good stuff.  But over time, I've had mixed experiences with most of the other big name tool brands that make me more skeptical of just making them a "go-to".  

In fact, for light-duty, I look first at Stanley "Fat Max" and Irwin tools.  For Medium duty, it's Worx and Craftsman.  For "Heavy duty" tools it's Bosch and probably Milwaukee. 

Everyone has their own experiences and builds their own brand loyalties based on those experiences.   As it should be.  I won't try to change your mind or make you change.  I might encourage you to go with less fanboyism and be open to looking at other tools and brands but that's it.

Oh, and if you've never actually used a particular brand or specific tool, then STFU with your bullshit fanboy bashing of other people's choices.  You have your favorite, leave it at that and quit bothering people who are more open minded.