I dunno. Branding was my gig for a long time. I think brands were a weak substitute for artisans / bespoke makers who had to personally stand by their work. Once upon a time there was a guy named Levi Strauss who made sturdy jeans, some guy named McDonald who made good hamburgers, a couple guys named Johnson who sold talcum powder. And that guy Nobel who invented new ways to blow up the coyote. If any of their products failed, it was on them. Then branding came along and quality declined, but people paid for inferior products because they had the name and stamp of the founder on them. The notion that brands have to maintain the quality associated with their namesake is the central illusion that trillions of dollars spent on branding seeks to create. It turns out that it's cheaper to prop up the name with advertising than it is with selling quality products.

And that doesn't even touch on brands like DuPont or Chevron, where all the positive connotations are purely from brand marketing built as a shroud around selling mass death.