What brands do you like?

[The Curmudgeon]

This is a first; a thread that was inspired by a meeting in work. I know. The Curmudgeon goes corporate.

But behind the usual work bullshit was a pretty interesting question; what brands do you FEEL something for? The guy asking the question had a "passion" for Adidas shoes. Ever since he was a teenager he collected pairs of Adidas, and he had boxes and boxes of the damn things in his house. What a massive asshole.

So he "loved" Adidas the brand, and then put the question out to us. What particular brands do we support? Here are my answers first.

SKY TV



When satellite TV first came into the UK it was seen as a joke, a trashy novelty. I remember a TV sketch show that had a wildlife explorer on a hunt and, gasp! He found one! A SKY satellite dish. Haw haw haw. How times change; SKY, funded by evil billionaire Rupert Murdoch, gobbled up the rights to all the major sporting events (want to watch football? Cricket? Boxing? F1? WWE? Good luck without Sky), created 24 hour movie channels and the best TV shows (the Simpson's is seen as a benchmark "Sky" show). They have their own 3D channel. They have thousands of movies available instantly on demand through the SKy Box, were the first and have the most HD channels. Have truly unlimited, uncapped broadband. Now everyone else (BBC, Virgin) play catch-up trying to compete with Sky. It may have the gnarled claws of Murdoch pulling the strings, but fuck it. I wouldn't be without SKY.

Apple



As reviled as they are adored, I've come to hold Apple particularly close to my heart recently. There was a time when I always said I never wanted a mobile phone. They were for easily pleased buffoons who wanted to hear their shit dance songs in LOL RINGTONE format. I eventually caved in due to Mrs C never being able to get a hole of me, and I bought a Blackberry. Piece of shit. Mrs C had an iPhone and.. damn it, I wanted an iPhone.

I recently won a pretty damn great HTC One M8, and so sold the iPhone and transferred over to Android, and I now realise just why when people get Apple phones they stay with Apple phones. They work better, iTunes is infinitely superior to the complicated, unresponsive bug-ridden nightmare that is Google Play, and a lot of the apps I use just aren't available, or aren't as good, as they are on the Apple Store. I sold my HTC and got an iPhone 6, never to convert to the dark side again. Add to that the continued love-affair I have with my trust iPad and, yeah.. Apple fan boy for life.


So that's two brands and companies I "identify with" and "feel passionate" about, to continue the corporate buzz-speak. Anything you can think of?

[Quillford]

Alright let's give this a whirl. My two brands that I "support" are both media based because let's face it my entire life is based around it, in one form or another.

W A R N E R B R O S .
First things first. Warner Brothers. Now while there are several things this could mean, I am particularly thinking about the music label side of this. These labels are the single reason why we still get albums from many of my favourite artists. Sure, they aren't independent but these guys fund some of the best talent in the world. I don't know how anything in the industry can compete for the number one spot of their talent. If you are under this label, your doing something right.

These guys are currently responsible for Red Hot Chilli Peppers. To go on, Metallica, The White Stripes. Even further more, Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Muse. The names continue, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance heck they even have Wu-Tang Clan. They support some of the biggest talent in my favourite circle of music. I support that. I buy albums. If they weren't around it would feel a sightly emptier and more dispersed. These bands would be dispersed and handled completely differently. After seeing Linkin Parks resurgence at Download last year with my first concert where I saw a full album performed live, I can only say that it was handled beautifully. The next new album stuck in my head because it came off the back end of that performance. A bit like the Manic's with their Holy Bible performance.

Bottom line. Warner Bros. They are a brand I support and have about as much faith as I can muster into any sort of company in a capitalist society. "Hah."

N I N T E N D O

Big surprise here. Nintendo are my second pick. Alright so first I want to start off by saying, my trust wavers in these guys daily. Trust is not something I employ with them. Hope however is. Knowledge too. Pride that I support them as well. Alright so, sales wise these guys are 2nd/3rd in the list at the moment. They bounce around frequently with PlayStation sitting firmly at a number one spot. Good one Sony. HOWEVER. If sales were anything to go by we would call McDonald's the best restaurant in the world. My wavering is delivered first hand to me from this guy.

Satoru Iwata. What a bell end. He brings me good news like, "Oh we are finally releasing one of the best horror series in the world outside of Japan again." to end it with "Except were not going to give you Project Zero 4. Just 5, just because." This is the guy who for me fronts every stupid, non-logical decision that Nintendo make with their 1950 thinking patterns. But for ever negative there is a positive and a powerful IP behind it.

They were responsible for Rareware Games who created classics like Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day. Most of the Donkey Kong Games. Goldeneye 007. StarFox 64 ("Lylat Wars" over the pond in the UK). Nintendo are responsible for the two biggest selling franchises in video games on the planet. "Mario" and "Super Mario" (Which are believe it or not two separate things). To further this, they have the quickest selling, probably the most addictive series, certainly one of the most well known IP's ever - they have "Pokémon". Those little pocket monsters have infiltrated my life for more hours than I care to count. Nintendo are the sole creators of most of my game addiction.

Kirby. Mario. Donkey Kong. Star Fox. Banjo. Pokemon. Turok. They even had a help over Final Fantasy originally before they split off to PS. Finally there is...

The Legend of Zelda. Above you can see a screenshot from one of my earliest video games. My first favourite game ever. At the whim of Mrs C when I was five years old, I was hooked. Never wavered. No escapism has fulfilled me as much as plodding around Hyrule with a sword and shield. The world, the law, the action. Nothing has ever come close to beating it for me. On top of every other amazing game Nintendo has released you have this tower that reaches miles in to the sky with a massive banner saying "Up Yours" to every other games company that has existed. The series is fantastic.

While people are angry at Nintendo. I don't really blame them... I also can't hate them either, despite through this turbulent time they have brought us the awesome Captain Toad Treasure Tracker that reinvents platformer games by taking away our ability to attack. They have thrown the best fantasy racing game I have played with Mario Kart 8 knocking things like Extreme-G (another Nintendo title), Star Wars Pod Racer and Crash Team Racing right out the park. Hyrule Warriors. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. Splatoon. Without Nintendo... I wouldn't enjoy games the way I do. I wouldn't have that fire about them. It would be ALOT duller on the market.

Vote Nintendo into.... wait. I mean Nintendo are a brand I feel something for. Yeah that will do.

So there are my brands, thoughts anyone?

[Quillford]

Also I thought I would offer my thoughts on Curmudgeons choices.

Both excellent choices. Sky and me go hand in hand and I certainly would miss it if it was gone. In fact been there and bought the T-Shirt. Virgin Media is terrible, not to mention the ability to record in the fashion sky offers is just perfect. Sky gives me the shows I want to watch (mostly) and the ability to fit it around my working life where I am only free to watch TV for a small section of any given day. 'Nuff said. Good choice bro.

Apple, you know me. I used to have an iPhone. I loved it. But when I saw my friends doing more on a Galaxy I parted with it and upgraded my contract and never looked back. Heck iPhone is great, it does things brilliantly and when it gets down to it there isn't much out there that comes close to it. Their phones are brilliant. I do however feel their computer brand is a bit lacking because the Mac Computer is redundant (IMO). I don't know why it's a thing in the industry that designers feel that Mac is better for design and Photoshop etc. It just seems like exactly the same system as windows with a different way to go about things. I feel that Windows out does Apple there leaving Apple with a music label, a really great phone company and some other misc stuff with research in technology which is always good. If I didn't enjoy Emulators as much as I do or if I had started my music collection in iTunes. I probably would prefer the iPhone. Great choices.

[Mrs_C]

So apart from the above two which I would agree with completely for the same reasons.

I enjoy personally



They were the height of fashion in the mid 2000s what with the likes of Britney and Kimmy K wearing them out to get their morning coffee.

Not so much now, people tend to look at Uggs as a kind of footwear that trashy people wear to the shops. At £180 a pair I would disagree. They have indeed been struck by the Burberry curse whereby trashy (chavy in the UK) people wear what appear to be uggs but more than often are not. Opting for their cheaper Japanese or Turkish loo a likes. Or FUGGS as I like to call them.

Personally I buy them not for what they look like but how they feel on my foot. They are great in rain or shine and believe me in Scotland even the shine is ugg worthy. They are just comfy and I wear them all the time and my older pair are used as slippers in my freezing ass house.

However I am a little snobby because even if i could get a cheaper copy which felt and looked exactly like an official pair of Uggs I would still not buy them because I would rather pay to have the real thing. Call it what you will but some things should not be cheapened and Uggs are one of them.

[lemex]

I'm going to show myself up as the biggest fucking dork on this forum by pointing primarily to things like:



Penguin Publishing house.

I love Penguin with a passion it is difficult to describe. Difficult even to put into words. From their new little black classics that are cheap and with ... decent translations that are only 80p, to their Penguin Classics range, and Modern Classics, that have good examples of scholarship for ordinary people. penguin has a lot of my heart. Also their books are usually well made, and nice and sturdy so they can stand long use. They are wonderful books from a wonderful publisher.

Also, they usually don't rip writers off. Mind, they did try to pull a fast one on David Thorne. And they did publish that fucking Morrisey autobiography. ¬.¬

*walks away and accepts a check from Penguin's lawyers*

Honestly though, that's the only brand I can think of right now - other than Aldi because I'm a poor fuck.

[trashcanman]

This is easily the most important visual media innovation of the last 20 years, rivaled only by iPod/iTunes in the entire entertainment industry. Before Netflix, I had to rely on slim pickins at video rental stores or buy DVD's online to see the cult and foreign films I crave. That gets expensive for somebody like me. And anime? Fucking fugedaboudit. Literally endless entertainment for the approximate price of a single DVD every month. There aren't words to express how this company has improved my life. When they upped their price a bit in the wake of studios realizing they should be charging way more for streaming rights I literally thought "by all means, take more of my money. You guys deserve it." I have never thought that about any company ever. As awesome as Apple's innovations have been, I always feel like they're trying to fuck me over. With Netflix, I feel like I'm robbing them.




This is a fairly new one that has taken the place of both Marvel and DC in my heart. Title by title, the Big Two have disappointed me and title by title, Image has impressed. I now subscribe exclusively to their comics. It wasn't planned, it just worked out that way. They keep coming out with amazing new titles and Marvel and DC keep getting dumber and dumber. Throw in the fact that Image operates on a creator-ownership policy, which means that they are not going to fuck over the authors and artists by stealing their creations from them and booting them into the gutter like Marvel and DC are known to do.

Image gives the best talent in the industry the opportunity to do everything their way with no boundaries to speak of and publish it for them so that we can get something different. And you know how I love something different. This company is eclipsing Marvel and DC in terms of creativity and quality and they're doing it by offering artistic freedom instead of corporate standardization. It doesn't get any better for me. I love this company. Marvel has the best movies and DC has the best TV shows, but Image has the best comics.