I’ve been thinking about what makes people passionate about (or fall in love with) a company and its products this week.  This is mostly because it’s “Black Friday” today and everybody knows that Apple products are making an appearance on almost every wish list in the country.

But this season always makes me ask:  What makes people LOVE certain companies or products?

The simple answer, I think, would be that certain products are clearly superior to the other available alternatives.  But, for one example, I can’t really say that a MacBook Pro is necessarily that much better than a PC for many people.  In fact - how many people out there, outside of the techy crowd, even understand why an Apple computer might be superior to the equivalently priced PC?

Apple doesn’t really sell laptops, iPods and iPhones - they sell “cool.”  And I think people love Apple in much the same way that they love a certain brand of car or a certain brand of clothing.  There’s a lot of impractical bias involved - like the common assumption that a BMW is better than a Hyundai.  On Black Friday we should be acutely aware of the fact that what we are going to the store to buy usually has little to do with a level-headed comparison of competing products, but rather an emotional impulse to have what is cool or trendy.

I’ve been running Vista on my HP Pavilion for over 1 year now, and I have not crashed once - but everyone seems to hate Vista.  (It has glitches, but it’s really not bad at all)  People hate Vista because they crave binaries:  If Apple is cool then PC is lame.  If Apple is stable then PC is unstable, and if Apple is user friendly then a PC simply has to be impossible to use.

Thus, Vista is only hated because it does not occupy the “cool” position in the market, and the public will naturally categorize it as the polar opposite of the “cool” option.  Take a look at the Apple commercials and it should be abundantly clear that Apple is making sure that this binary is etched into our brains.  Why else would the same ad campaign be running so long after the first commercial in the series ran?

Now, I love Apple. I think they make some of the best stuff out there, their products are always competitive and always have that signature Apple user experience that makes you enjoy the product more and more every time you touch it.  But I’m willing to acknowledge that other products aren’t bad simply because they’re not Apple’s.  In fact, other products are often better than Apple’s when you do a side-by-side comparison and take into account that certain users have different preferences than others.

But we have a tendency to assume that something is a poor quality product simply because it doesn’t have the cooler company’s name on it, and this is really a shame.  With all the options out there for personal technology, it’s difficult for the average consumer to determine which product is either the best, or the best for them personally.  Smart brands like Apple make this seem like an easy decision for consumers who are struggling to make this choice - because the most popular choice couldn’t possibly be the wrong one, right?

That being said, with the economy tightening up I think we might see a shift to a mentality where an reasonably priced product that has some neat features will become “cool” again.  And those expensive “cool” products will look a lot more like excessive luxuries.

The economy is a game changer for brands like Apple.  Being the cool company is very much subject to trends in public opinion, and I don’t think that it’s very easy to stay cool when you sell the most expensive products in many of the categories that you compete in.  I’m a huge fan of the way that Apple has smartly occupied the cool position in the market - particularly because they really do sell products that live up to the buzz.  But I also want to point out that Apple isn’t really the most open or transparent company in the world, and I think a lot of people will increasingly feel skeptical of the expensive, cool products when the company that makes them continues to hide behind the curtain.

I think this skepticism is going to be sparked and fueled by a tough economy - where people have to reject the cool nature of Apple products as a way to cover the fact that they’re simply unable or unwilling to pay a premium price on a given piece of technology.

I’ll be interested to see how the company does during the coming year+ of anticipated economic hardship - perhaps they will slash some prices and try to combat that growing sense of skepticism… Because the only thing better than being cool is being cool for 30% off with the purchase of $150 or more.