Bug? Brand rating suddenly drops by 50

[bycomet]

Uploaded my two save files as attatchment. Game version 9.1.20. Using corporate brand strategy.
In the 002.sav, my brand rating was over 90, for years it is stable. And in the 003.sav, I entered toy industry with a toy factory and three toy stores, then my brand rating became 50. Compare the two save files, brand awareness are all nearly 90, but in the latter one brand loyalty drops by nearly 50. Product qualities are all the best in the market and there is no shortage of goods. Can anyone tell me why brand loyalty turns to negative?

[bycomet]

Update the status. I played again from 002.sav. I changed to range brand strategy before entering toy industry. Brand loyalty didn't become negative, but some product ranges' brand loyalty increased as normal, but other ranges seem stuck below 10, and all ranges' brand awareness strangely stuck at 50. Uploaded this new save file 004.sav.

[David]

For your information, here is a strategy article about brand ratings: https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... 281#p35585

Please let me know if the problem persists after using the strategies outlined in the post.

[bycomet]

For your information, here is a strategy article about brand ratings: https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... 281#p35585

Please let me know if the problem persists after using the strategies outlined in the post.

Hi David,

Thanks for this. The negative brand loyalty has been solved. It's because I am using corpprate brand stratygy to cover many product classes. I changed to range brand strategy and they all become positive.

But brand loyalty is still unclear. Despite postive, I only have two product range generate around 50 loyalty and the remaining 10 more ranges are below 5. This doesn't happen to many AI companies, they can generate enough loyalty in unlimited product ranges. My weak brand loyalty creates difficulty for me to gain competitors' market share. I am not sure how brand loyalty functions but I do understand product quality, brand awareness, and constant supply will benefit brand loyalty. I have no problems in these factors but still feeling impotent to generate it. I have almost top technology and brand awareness (managed by CMO with maximum brand rating target) in all products.

Can you explain further how brand loyalty works or use my save file to help me figour out what the problem is? I uploaded the latest save file here.

[David]

Please see the section about Brand Loyalty (page 114) in Capitalism 2 manual https://caplab.b-cdn.net/manual/Capitalism_2_Manual.pdf

[bycomet]

Please see the section about Brand Loyalty (page 114) in Capitalism 2 manual https://caplab.b-cdn.net/manual/Capitalism_2_Manual.pdf

Hi David,

I've finished the reading of this part but I am still confused with those factors.
- Product quality: this is the most weird part. I can gain loyalty in photograph and communication product, but my digital camera and smart phone have no highest technology. And I have top techonology in tobacco and drug product, but they gain no loyalty. Besides, when I owned better technology than competitors and began dumping to capture market share (with 90+ brand awareness), I saw no decrease in competitor's brand loyalty. Seems AI's brand loyalty doesn't affect by selling inferior product.
- Brand scope and brand strategy: I am using range brand like competitors. It only cover few kinds of product so this may not have negtive effect on loyalty. At lease it doesn't happen to AI. I also tried unique brand strategy before and I didn't observe different result.
- Advertising: I own all three kinds of media vehicle and they all have highest rating in the media market so I don't skimp on advertisement expense. For each product I tried to use at least two different media firms to ensure coverage. All of my product class has 100 brand rating. To achieve this, I fired CMO and manually choose media firm and put advertisement expense slider to the maximum. I don't believe competitors can do better in this area.

As analysed above, I consider brand loyalty mechanism doesn't fully function as designed. Could you please check it?

BTW, this window seems bugged. My CEO has expertise in drug product and the technology of all three drug product has data overflow bug. Raw material quality also overflows here.

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[David]

I've requested the programmer to look into the issue.

I will update you with an answer in the coming week.

[bycomet]

Updated to 9.1.23 and most of my product range began to cumulate brand loyalty. I finally took my biggest competitor's market share and made it lose money.
Nice work devs!