Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlesRyan  You know what's funny? You've just said the same thing twice. |
Not quite.
Some people buy brand name because, while they know it is not the best quality, they also know what quality to expect. A brand name is often a sort of sure thing, whereas an unknown is a gamble.
A great many people buy McDonalds, for example, not because they believe McDonalds is the best burger, but because they always know what they're going to get.
I suppose if you rolled "value of knowing what the product will be" into the quality of the product itself, then you could say it is the same thing, but I'm fairly certain that that changes the meanings of the terms from those justanobody is using.
There are huge budgets allocated to name-brand recognition, and the whole point of trademark law is to prevent others from profitting by your expenditure on name-brand recognition. Saying that this advertising works is not,
IMHO, dismissive of anyone. If anything can be proven with statistics, I would accept that "name-brand recognition affects buying patterns" is high on the list of things that have been so proven.
After all, buying on the basis of brand isn't irrational. There are good, logical, reasons to do so. However, doing so doesn't guarantee that you've purchased the best possible product, either.
(All of which has little to do with when the
GSL is coming out, except to speak to the question of why
WotC decided to go
GSL over
OGL in the first place. It still seems to be an attempt to close the barn door after the cows have already escaped to me.)
RC
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