If Consumers have the time to research things, brand loyalty's effect is GREATLY reduced because people know what products actually fit their needs instead of what they perceive best fit their needs.
Your using product choice as an arguement for brand loyalty which is a backwords approach. For example, few people would be interested in a economic car made by a brand known for high quality products. Only the most hardcore brand loyalists are going to forgo all other information to pick up this new car.
If people are buying the product because they are making the product that most suits them that isn't brand loyalty. That's hitting your target consumer. That person is loyal to the particular features you are putting out. The test of brand loyalty is if they buy said product despite another product being better for their purposes. Which is what the PS3 has failed on. That's what they meant when they said the PS3 was supposed to sell 5 million at launch without any games.
Strong brand loyalty... like the kind the article is talking about IS more or less a blind loyalty. Brand Loyalty is when you buy only said product, and it is MOST prevelant among those that have less time to do research. Or you do research but mostly biased research, for example if you do all your research and playstation sites. This is also the brand loyalty you were talking about. People who only buy one brand of product.
If you don't have strong brand loyalty then the featuers of the products are going to matter between at least two or three different companies. Which... there are only 2 or 3 companies in the console buisness.
If you need any proof. Look at the N64.
Or your own article, for that matter. Which doesn't say brand loyalty is important. It just says having a brand is imortant. Which once again is a non factor since these are all household companies. There isn't a "Savelot brand" console.
People are likely going to trust something they've heard of before vs something they haven't or that just came from the supermarket and they don't know anything about.
Lesser brand loyalty. Or Brand equity as it were is just a minor part of the equation. In some cases it can be negative if the product your selling is different from the other products you sell. Which is somewhat the case when it comes to the PS3 vs the rest of the playstation brand.
