The Importance of Brands

I had to think about this for a while, as I have tried to make an active move away from being 'brand loyal' for quite some time now. As I thought about it however, I recalled one brand that does stand out in particular for me. Tor is a book publisher, that specialized in science-fiction and fantasy novels. While I would not say that I am brand loyal in that I never read anything other than Tor books, if something catches my eye and I discover it was published by Tor then I am more than willing to take a chance on purchasing the book without waiting to find reviews on the book to see if it's actually worth reading or not. 
Over the last 20 years, I would guess my satisfaction level with purchasing a variety of books simply because they carried the Tor logo to easily be around 90%, so I would consider myself to be content with that facet of brand loyalty.

If I'm feeling overwhelmed by choices...

this logo will definitely influence my purchasing decision.

This contrasts with my attitude towards pretty much any other 'brand' name, such as clothes, shoes, electronics, etc. My parents were very much brand loyalists, and there was not a single electronic item in our house that was not a Sony. After getting some real world experience I quickly found out that while Sony is an almost overwhelming brand name, they are usually not overwhelmingly superior products, and are often times much more expensive that competing brands, simply because they know people will pay the 'loyalty' tax. In fairness Sony products are usually good quality, and there's nothing wrong with them, but the 'bang for the buck' factor is what could be viewed as a shortcoming.