is brand snobbery a new phenominon

[laverdabru]

I must admit to being a bit worried about these ads, promoting 'Survival' air pistols/rifles, & obviously aimed towards a young audience. My eldest grandchild (13) is now allowed to use my air guns, under strict supervision. His non shooting parents decided it would be better for him to learn the basic aspects of shooting safety & so on with me rather than possibly going off to a mate who has a BB gun.
So far, so good, & his favourite gun is my Mk4 AirSporter. 'Much better than PC/X-box shooting games, Grampa!'. We do target shooting & plinking at 10-20 yard ranges with a safe back stop.
But, he also loves watching BG programmes on the box. Can't help thinking, if I had not told him that you need a good rifle & aim to ensure a clean kill, that he might have thought a Survival pistol would be adequate for hunting.

[edbear2]

just put a thread on general asking this very question, many knocking this new pistol from Gammo which has Bear Grills branding. I cant see the problem myself if it means youngsters gett in to our sport. So what do you think, is brand snobbery a recent thing Crossmann used sports stars of the day to advertise there products in the 50,s/ 60,s and there highley sought after has you know. So maybe stir the "kids" up on general, what do you all in the " gentlemans corner " think

Nah...Been going on since the early 1900's, especially with BSA's well oiled P.R. dept. even in early days "inferior" brands, "cheap" brands, 'foreign imposters", "less accurate" etc. all mentioned all the time in copy. And then they would change a small widget and re-sell the "improved" version of the same gun (heavily advertised as such) and the sales would come piling in., it worked every time!

You could even send in your "out of date" prewar rifle to have the latest tap or cocking arm put on at the factory to keep up with the Jones's,...One reason why there are so many weird variants out there to collect...So they never foresaw the strategy still working over 100 years on!

In the early 70's at school, you were a social outcast to some if you dared turn up at the youth club disco in "Tesco Tear-Aways" instead of Levi jeans, or a natty catalogue shirt and not a Ben Sherman, branding and tribalism were rife!

ATB, Ed

[fatttmannn]

thanks for the inputt guys.