What Is A "Lifestyle Brand"?

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Judge Dredd

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Title.

I see lots of things that are described as, or aspire to be, a "lifestyle brand", and while I can intuit what it might be, I wanted to know if there's something specific they're going for?

And for clarity, I assume they're trying to make it an identity like "I'm a goth" or "I'm a sportball fan", but I really don't know.

Examples of companies/brands trying to become "lifestyle brands" include Dungeons and Dragons, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney. Disney might be the odd one out here, as they own Marvel and Star Wars, and is hostile to their existing fanbase, especially "Disney adults", so how it's meant to be a lifestyle brand when you kick out the people who already see it as an identity seems odd, unless my definition is wrong.
 
It's corporate vision of what it thinks a lifestyle of a specific culture group is. Due to the fact, that corporate people are not part of the culture, they (mostly) do not undertand the culture of that group, which reflect heavily in brand's products.
 
I thought it used to mean skater shit and clothing brands but nowadays I guess its just choosing a brand you like and committing your whole personality towards it. I assume it would be stuff like sanrio where you can get almost any product plastered with hello kitty or kuromi but it just seems like some buzzword to make your brand seem more important
 
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According to Wikipedia

Lifestyle brands operate from the idea[clarification needed] that each individual has an identity based on their choices, experiences, and background (e.g., ethnicity, social class, subculture, nationality, etc.). Lifestyle brands evoke emotional connections between a consumer and that consumer's desire to affiliate him or herself with a group. Lifestyle brands are one of the possible ways of consumer self-expression: customers believe that their identity will be reinforced or supplemented if they publicly associate themselves with a lifestyle brand or other symbol-intensive brands.[8]

"I think of myself as a rugged outdoorsman who like backpacking and camping, so I wear exclusively Patagonia hats and flannel t-shirts on the weekends!"

Brands that consumers like to buy to project "who they are" I guess... If you're a hardcore backpacker and outdoorsman, you wouldn't buy your clothes at WalMart, would you???
 
Brands trying to become "lifestyle brands" basically always equates to them no longer making enough profit doing the thing they originally set out to do (example: Harley Davidson, making motorcycles) and supplementing their income by selling a ton of branded garbage (everything from clocks to t-shirts to beer koozies to Funko Pops to sunglasses) to their fanbase in order to supplement their failing company that's falling into irrelevancy.

When the current fanbase dies off or stops buying their branded shit, the company will inevitably go bankrupt, or be sold off to China or India
 
You see alot of blue collar guys wearing "Carhart" sweaters and wat not. Lifestyle Brands are essentially brands that market to a certain subset of the population and they wear them as tribal identification. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum you have the "American Girl" dolls which are a sort of lifestyle brand for little girls and gay men.
 
A lifestyle brand is a brand with a fandom, for which it aspires to be the solitary supplier of everything. The important distinction is there's no preexisting "community" that adopts the brand (like troons and the IKEA shark —they buy sharks, they don't buy everything IKEA), it's all astroturfed. Lifestyle brand consoomers don't think "I want to be a XXXXX, the best equipment choice is BRAND, I have to buy it", they think, "ooh, BRAND made a new thing, I have to buy it and think how to fit it into my daily routine".

Needless to say it is retarded to be a fan of a brand, because a single company does not have the expertise to produce everything, they will invariably have to either make garbage or slap their brand on third-party garbage. (Good companies don't do the lifestyle shit.)

This is why, except for "fashion" (which is inherently trash), most "lifestyle brands" are marketing buzzwords, they try to cultivate the image because it's what management thinks is hot now, and to provide cozy jobs for large adult children, but lifestyle consoomers are a small part of their profit.
 
Jeep, particularly since 2007.

It was happening to an extent before then, but the various owners of that company have, in the intervening years, built a lifestyle brand around their increasingly-overpriced and -poorly-built vehicles. Buying one means that you can now be part of the wonderful world of annual package holidays in Utah, a dashboard crammed full of retarded rubber ducks, and a stupid name for the vehicle emblazoned along the edges of the hood. Oh, and throwing money at 'upgrades' which will never be used by the owner, except for maybe the colour-changing LED underbody lights and angry eyes grille.

Thanks for fucking it up for the rest of us, Daimler-Benz / Cerberus / FCA / Stellantis.
 
Definitely Apple.

I personally believe that image is a much, much larger part of Apple's designs for hardware and GUI alike.

Apple tends to have quieter alert tones. The ones in iOS 17 are so quiet that you can easily miss the default "Blip" when an app wants to tell you something. Radar was replaced by Radial, a lullaby that sounds more like soothing postal service music than something that will wake you up in the morning. Perhaps this appeals to an audience who values subtlety and finds excessive sound to be rude on principle.

Apple compartmentalizes everything. When you download an mp3, it goes to the "music" program, formerly iTunes, by default. MacOS was designed to fragment your files into sandboxes.

Voice Memos on MacOS and iOS can't be selected and downloaded in one fell swoop, perhaps to prevent you from transferring large amounts of audio to and from your computer, or to make it more suited to its ideal use to record voice snippets instead of sampling your life.

Airpods. These headphone batteries do not last long. I think these headphones appeal to a crowd that prides itself on not needing to immerse yourself in digital audio all day, since you'll constantly be taking the things out to charge. They aren't even obvious in the ears due to the lack of any kind of wire or headband. They almost force you to look at their face head-on and potentially make eye contact with a stranger – you wouldn't know right away they have headphones on. Again, these headphones appeal to crowd that prefers subtlety. I think wearing just one airpod at a time will soon be a sort of political statement – one that shows that some young people still use their ears for their intended purpose.

Apple Pencil. They make the goddamned thing so easy to lose. It doesn't help that the name brand cases all leave it dangling there magnetically, while some 3rd party cases thankfully hold it in place physically as well. Perhaps the apple cases send the message that hey, I am a conscientious person who can be trusted with an Apple Pencil.

Also, consider that you can never really disable the keyboard on a modern MacBook, meaning it's a bitch and a half to clean.

I think these all mean that Apple products are great to project the image that you are a more "refined" person, and that adjusting your behavior to social norms is no big deal for you. It shows that you don't like to have that much technology in your life compared to some, while still enjoying what it can do. It demonstrates that you can take care of your electronics. It demonstrates that you value your image and surroundings.

Buying an iMac when even the Mac Mini is cheaper and more powerful is a status symbol – it shows that you view large stacks of electronic equipment as clutter and prefer something that more closely resembles a small television with a wireless keyboard and flat hockey puck for a mouse. This desktop fits into a lot of more conservative settings. Laptops definitely send more of the image of someone who doesn't want a computer to be a quasi permanent fixture in their living space.

Apple is not for geeks. It doesn't want you to even really have a choice to know what really goes on on your system. It wants you to think of your computer the way a normal, non-vore man thinks of his woman's digestive system.
 
I guess its just choosing a brand you like and committing your whole personality towards it
I think of the term the same way.
Not to an obsession but I like the brand Sonoma. Its inexpensive and comes in lots of colors, have the same sweater in all the different colors.
 
Needless to say it is retarded to be a fan of a brand, because a single company does not have the expertise to produce everything, they will invariably have to either make garbage or slap their brand on third-party garbage.
Snap-On, go to any mechanics shop and you'll find retards who thinks they are imbued with magical properties. Snap-On toolboxes, Snap-On wrenches, Snap-On sockets, Snap-On electric tools, Snap-On OBD code reader, Snap-On flashlight, Snap-On bottle opener, Snap-On coffee mug, Snap-On underwear, Snap-On vibrating butt plug, Snap-On credit, Snap-On mortgage, find my Snap-On dealer app...

Now made in Asia!
 
They aren't even obvious in the ears due to the lack of any kind of wire or headband.
Hard disagree. Those white stalks that literally just look like normal "earpods" that got snipped are very obvious in someone's ear, and are a great way to identify complete retards. $180 for the ones with ANC, and they're easy as fuck to lose. I have a set of non-crApple wireless earbuds that are also noise cancelling, but have a loop that goes over my ear in case they fall out. And they were less than half the cost of stupid Air Pods, and can last almost all day on a charge.
 
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Title.

I see lots of things that are described as, or aspire to be, a "lifestyle brand", and while I can intuit what it might be, I wanted to know if there's something specific they're going for?

And for clarity, I assume they're trying to make it an identity like "I'm a goth" or "I'm a sportball fan", but I really don't know.

Examples of companies/brands trying to become "lifestyle brands" include Dungeons and Dragons, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney. Disney might be the odd one out here, as they own Marvel and Star Wars, and is hostile to their existing fanbase, especially "Disney adults", so how it's meant to be a lifestyle brand when you kick out the people who already see it as an identity seems odd, unless my definition is wrong.
D&D, Marvel, Star Wars, definitely trying to become lifestyle brands. Disney... they don't want Disney adults, they want to be a generational brand. Hook the kids on Disney, then they get their kids on Disney, repeat. But this is why they sell merch, they want people to be proud to play D&D and have their branded coffee cup, their branded hoodie, their branded etc. and it projects "I too am a fellow nerd hip with the latest trend" type shit.

Apple is an obvious one people have pointed out.

Carhartt would be another. Look like a "working man" brand shit. I've got a carhartt belt I bought years ago on clearance, it's held up for a couple of decades now, but that's how the brand used to be. Now it's trying to be a fashion company.

Supreme, Under Armour, Lulu Lemon, Nike, Columbia, BMW, Jaguar, Ford at times, Chevy/GMC, REI, Ulta, Gucci, Starbucks, etc.

Basically anything with branding meant to stand out, has a variety of products rather than just the singular product they'd normally be known for, trendy brands, brands people buy to project an image of whatever the brand represents. For example Nike and Under Armour? "Athlete". Columbia, The North Face? "Outdoors and adventure". Supreme and Gucci? "Money". When car companies do it, it's the random clothing and other accessories that don't have anything to do with a car, and of course whatever that brand is trying to project. Fucking Stanley became one at least for a bit due to those insulated cups people were fighting in retail stores for because of the colors. Hell, even Glock, Sig, Colt, Remington, Winchester, and others have tried this from time to time.
 
Snap-On, go to any mechanics shop and you'll find retards who thinks they are imbued with magical properties. Snap-On toolboxes, Snap-On wrenches, Snap-On sockets, Snap-On electric tools, Snap-On OBD code reader, Snap-On flashlight, Snap-On bottle opener, Snap-On coffee mug, Snap-On underwear, Snap-On vibrating butt plug, Snap-On credit, Snap-On mortgage, find my Snap-On dealer app...

Now made in Asia!
This goes for all tool brands nowadays. Milwaukee, DeWalt, Ryobi, and Bosch are all almost as bad as Snap-On when it comes to their own respective blue-collar cultists.

Of course, what they won't tell you is that literally every power tool in the US is manufactured by Techtronic Industries - even the ones whose brands aren't owned by TTI - and you're just paying a premium over the Harbor Freight model for your preferred color of plastic and maybe some cheap pot metal in the gear train instead of nylon.
 
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