Brand versus Features

One of my friends wanted to buy a cellphone for his father, he had shortlisted his options and went to the market to see the real product before buying one. He was looking to buy either one of the following - Nokia 2600 or LG 1600 or Sony Ericsson (don’t remember model) which all are in same price range.

To whichever shop we went and asked for their suggestion which is better among all of the them and each one of them said Nokia is Nokia which meant that blindly go for Nokia whereas when we compared the features Nokia is worst among them there is no comparison. LG 1600 mobile has lot more features than Nokia 2600 but none of the shopkeepers pointed out anything in favour of LG.

I believe that Nokia as a brand has created a dent in the minds of people and they are unable to look beyond the name and in the process they forgo the better alternatives that are available in the market.