My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

Corporate branding and corporate labelling has not been something that interests me for a very long time, at least, for the most part. When I was younger I used to want "brand name" clothes - because all of the "cool" people had them. That was more to fit in and be accepted than anything else, I guess, in part, that is what corporate branding is all about - even in adulthood. BMW and Dell and Sony seem to be the adult corporate brands replacing the "cool" clothing brands that ruled throughout my school days- obviously some people never grow up.

These days I tend to care more about quality than corporate brandname and/or price. Take leather shoes, for example, a matter close to my heart; I cannot for the life of me find a single pair of shoes made or sold in Australia that have glued and double stitched soles with a durable sole on them. Colorado? I don't think so - the new soles on those shoes are already worn flat before you buy them which implies to me they have already given up the fight before even starting. Doc Martens? Only seem to have single stitching. Rivers? Those shoes which can cost up to $100 don't even have stitching keeping them together and yet they insist on bragging about the quality of them in their catalogues. If I'm paying $100 for a pair of shoes my damn shoes are going to have double stitching, glued soles, with durability.

The same goes for electric appliances and other items - what good is a brandname without quality? They are all made in the same Korean sweat shop. Plastic parts, fake chrome colours - $160 for a DVD player that looks like it is made in the backyard by a two year old with fingerpaint!

I have no idea what my point is - when I started, before my phone rang, on the first paragraph, I did have a point I was going to make BUT now I'll just leave you with my opinion on branding - to me you can have all of the corporate branding in the world - if there is no quality it is not worth the extra price.