User:Lumber/Brand Loyalty

"You gotta have merchandise because it's like a wedding ring for the product. And it makes it- and then the fans will- will continue to support you as long as you have the merchandise a- it's like a wedding ring."

- Chris, making his thoughts on branding as clear as he can.

Brand loyalty is a consumer's commitment to continually purchasing a product or service from a particular company or business. Companies go to great lengths, generally through advertising, loyalty programs and contest, to establish a brand which consumers will recognize, consider valuable, and seek out at the expense of other brands. Due to his difficulty separating reality and fiction Chris tends to consider advertisements to be literal documentation of a product's effectiveness rather than intrinsically biased attempts to lure consumers. This, in combination with his rigid thinking, fear of change and attraction to routine, has led Chris to have intense brand loyalty for certain products as well as hatred for their perceived rivals. His loyalty even extends to areas that would not normally considered "brands," such as mental disabilities and sexual orientations.

Overview
Chris considers his choice of brands to be a major component of his identity. In general, once Chris has committed to a particular "brand" he will stand by it regardless of its quality. He considers those who abandon a brand in favor of a competitor, such as Sonichu fans who became fans of Asperchu, to be "hypocrites." Chris seems to consider being a consumer of a particular brand as something like a relationship - at one point clumsily attempting to use a mangled quote from the video game Brutal Legend to explain this strange belief, saying that merchandise was like a wedding ring and that as long as there was branded merchandise available, fans should stay loyal.

Chris is highly susceptible to marketing and branding; he feels strong loyalty to brands even, and perhaps especially, if they are essentially identical to their rivals. He is drawn to virtually every attempt at generating brand loyalty, compulsively entering any contest he encounters and fastidiously collecting various loyalty points, including My Coke Rewards and McDonald's Monopoly.

Chris seems to struggle to understand the economics of advertisements, instead seeing them as positive features in the media he enjoys. He happily included his own versions of advertisements and product placement for real brands in his Homemade Nintendo Power magazine and nearly every issue of Sonichu; he seemed genuinely surprised that Coke, for example, wouldn't want one of his fake Coke ads - "hand-drawn charm" notwithstanding - on the Cwcipedia.

He is a vigorous defender of his favored brands in unusual ways, warning his readers not to purchase pirated versions of Little Big Planet (a PS3 exclusive title) for Xbox 360, despite the fact that this is impossible.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic is the quintessential example of Chris's intense brand loyalty. Chris is in many ways the product of Sega's attempt to allow people to feel a personal connection with electronic appliances. Following Mario's success for Nintendo, Sonic was designed to appeal to young children and act as a mascot for Sega. He was concocted by combining elements from other popular cultural elements of the early 1990s, including Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, and Santa Claus. Part of Sega's strategy was to employ a multi-pronged marketing technique, including video games, television shows, and contests. Chris followed all of these closely and in a fateful moment became the winner of the Sonic Watch and Win Sweepstakes, which cemented Sonic's place of honor in Chris's mind. Sonic became Chris's "lifelong hero," replacing his previous "lifelong hero" The American Rabbit. (Despite Sonic's much greater grip on his life, Chris has often felt compelled to mention the American Rabbit, as if out of some obligation.) While Sonic was certainly a popular franchise, particularly in the 1990s, Chris became obsessed with the hedgehog to a level likely unanticipated by Sega. During the 1990s Sonic occupied nearly all of his thinking, serving as a fantasy world in which he could escape from the realities of daily life. Chris would generally combine Sonic with whatever he was doing, whether it was replacing the characters in Goosebumps books with Sonic characters or combining Sonic with basketball. Over the past two decades Chris has purchased nearly every Sonic-branded game, toy, and bit of merchandise, and seems to view Sonic as something like an old personal friend.

Instead of growing up and moving on when the Sonic brand began to grow stale at the end of the 1990s, Chris merged Sonic with his other beloved franchise at the time: Pokemon to create Sonichu who seems to have replaced Sonic as the primary character in his internal fantasy world although Sonic still makes occasional cameo appearances.

Despite Sonic's sidekick Tails' major presence in Sonic media, Chris rarely refers to him and conspicuously left him, or an uncreative recolor, absent in Sonichu. Some have speculated that this may be due to popular schoolyard rumors that conjectured that Sonic and Tails were in a homosexual relationship. Chris's notorious homophobia may have caused him to have an aversion to a character that he imagined might have tempted Sonic from "the straight path."

Although Mario and Nintendo were vicious rivals of Sonic and Sega, Chris seems to have been largely oblivious of this tension and never subjected them to the kind of hatred he would aim at rivals of his favored products later in his life.

Playstation 3 vs. HEXbox
Perhaps Chris's best known case of brand loyalty is his sycophantic love of the Sony PlayStation 3 and abject hatred for for the Microsoft XBox 360. While fanboyism for these video game consoles is certainly well known and the rivalry between these products was referred to as a "console war," Chris, as he frequently does, took it to a new level, irrationally hating the Xbox 360 and heaping love and money on Sony. Chris was obsessed with the PS3 long before he was able to purchase one, stating that he would throw out the cure for autism for the $600 hunk of black plastic. When he finally bought a PS3, after failing to win it in a contest, he considered it to be the "ultimate life upgrade." The PS3 and its online component the PSN, where he has spent thousands of dollars, became an extremely important part of every day for Chris. He would use his limited budget to purchase numerous Sony branded accessories, including a flat-screen TV, a PSeye, PSmove, PSmove sharpshooter and multiple Guitar Hero controllers. Chris seems to consider the PS3 and its games and accessories to be a genuine life improvement akin to investments rather than a glorified hugbox; how these electronic gizmos do anything but distract him from reality remains unclear. Chris went to great lengths to express his distaste for the PS3 primary rival: the Xbox 360, or "HEXbox" as he liked to call it. When Chris would propose a videogame such as Christian Weston Chandler's Adult Chronicles, he would make sure to state that it would be for all consoles... HEXbox excepted. Chris went as far as defacing in-store advertisements for the Xbox while yelling "kick that hex-bawx" and frequently lashing out at those who appeared to like or be affiliated with the Xbox. Chris's reasons for hating the Xbox 360 was never clearly defined. When pressed for answers, Chris would generally cite Xbox Live's (Xbox's online component) cost or the infamous "red ring of death" He would later admit that his anger stemmed from jealousy over being unable to afford an original Xbox and that the aforementioned reasons were merely excuses. Though he later softened his stance against the Xbox under the influence of Jackie, the rivalry between the consoles and Chris's loyalty towards Sony was at its peak during the height of Chris trolling. This caused his hatred to become well known and the Xbox 360 to become a bit of a mascot for trolls. Chris also associated the Xbox with trolls, depicting Alec Benson Leary as an Xbox user. Even though he has recanted much of his hatred towards the XBox 360, he has not made the choice to purchase one, despite spending the vast majority of his money on video games.

Ironically, Chris once felt similar hatred towards the Sony PS 1 and 2, which were at that time rivals to his beloved Nintendo N64 and GameCube respectively. His hatred for Sony and its gaming products, described by Chris as equal to his contemporary hatred of Microsoft, evaporated when he purchased a PS 1 at an SPCA rummage sale for a "bargain." He intended to sell it for profit, but instead played it and found it to be enjoyable. Instead of learning from this, discovering that rival consoles can be equally enjoyable, Chris simply became a Sony fanboy and began hating Microsoft.

Autism vs. Asperger's
Chris extends his loyalty to brands far outside the normal realms of products and services and into the world of mental abnormality. He is extremely loyal to his diagnosis of autism, swearing by "my autism" multiple times and considering it to be an integral part of his identity, despite having serious difficulty grasping how the condition affects his ability to function. Just as with the PS3 and Xbox 360, Chris has identified a rival to autism in Asperger's syndrome. Despite the fact that Chris's "high-functioning" autism and Asperger's are essentially identical diagnoses, Chris feels that people with Asperger's are trying to "steal his limelight" and in fact stated that the name of the disorder, beyond merely sounding like "a bad cut of meat," brought to mind "competing retards." Just like with Coke and Pepsi, Chris has taken two functionally identical things and chosen one to identify with and the other to hate.

Harry Potter vs. Pokemon
Although this is not seen as a traditional rivalry, Chris has a strong dislike of the boy wizard Harry Potter because he perceives him to be a threat to the Pokemon franchise. Chris calls him a "total spaz" and at one point even threated to kill the fictional character. His hatred appears to stem from Chris perception that a brand was once again "stealing the limelight" from something he identified with, in this case Pokemon. When Harry Potter and Pokemon were released at roughly the same time while Chris was in high school. While Pokemon was aimed at younger children, Harry Potter targeted a slightly older, more literate demographic. To Chris, the choice was obvious. At the request of Jackie, Chris dressed up as a wizard and made reference to Harry Potter, but this was almost certainly merely an attempt to please his sweetheart rather than a genuine fondness for the series.

Nintendo
Chris has been a lifelong fan of Nintendo products, and although his love of Sonic prevented him from becoming obsessed with Mario, Chris has owned nearly every Nintendo console and handheld since the NES (there have been no signs of the infamous Virtual Boy). His relationship with Nintendo and his interactions with Shigeru Miyamoto, who he believed was interested in producing a Sonichu game, displays Chris's odd understanding of consumer/corporate relations. It appears that Chris believed that his loyalty to various corporate interests would be recognized and returned in a reciprocal fashion, as he listed his multitude of Nintendo purchases in an attempt to convince the game developer to work with him.

AXE
Chris's loyalty to this multinational deodorant brand (called Lynx in the UK) is a classic example of Chris taking advertising literally. Early commercials for the deodorant depicted women throwing themselves at men in a manner reminiscent of Chris's desire for women to approach him in public. Rather than seeing this as hyperbole, Chris seems to believe that the product may have this effect in reality. Obviously Axe has never worked as advertised for Chris, but he has maintained his status as a loyal customer for many years.

Axe is also an example of how Chris considers the products he buys an integral component of his identity. As a loyal Axe customer, he was deeply disturbed when he was told that Axe was popular in the gay community, and he felt the need to use Youtube to request that the Unilever Corporation use labels to specifically forbid homosexuals from using their products.

McDonald's vs. Burger King
Chris is a lifelong loyal fan of McDonald's and thus dislikes its main competitor, Burger King. McDonald's is a major component of Chris's life. He eats a significant percentage of his meals at the popular fast-food restaurant, considers it the perfect location for a first date, and features it as a location in several issues of Sonichu. One of his most cherished and sickening fantasies involves having sex with his sweetheart in the handicapped bathroom of the local McDonald's. Chris has little love for Burger King, although he certainly never mentioned refusing to eat the food when dragged there by his father, who preferred it to McDonald's. (Bob and Chris apparently did have some trifling dispute about coupons with the manager of their local Burger King, resulting in Chris's bizarre attempt to get his trolls to troll her by creating an article on the CWCki.))

Coke and Pepsi
Surprisingly, Chris does not appear to have a specific long-term loyalty in this classic example of a nonexistent choice. He has been known to drink both, but claims that Sonichu drinks only CWC Cola, a variant of Pepsi with a special ingredient. At one point he supported a boycott of Pepsi due to its alleged "gay-friendliness." He has been known to hoard My Coke Rewards points; in the Ivy Q&A, Ivy describes his becoming miffed at having to use his points to buy a different version of a song he already owned to fulfill Ivy's request for a video. (One might think that a few points are a trifling thing when sweet, sweet china is the potential reward, but then one probably isn't Chris.)