Equivalent facts can lead to different choices depending on how they are framed.
More quotesSame factory. Same network. Different badge. Two thousand euros, please.
People who insist only “objective” product differences create value must find this terribly rude. The VW Sharan and Ford Galaxy can share physical reality while buyers experience different risk, status and reassurance. Virgin Mobile can ride the same network and be judged differently. Brand has entered the product before a spanner or signal changes.
This is not irrational froth floating above the serious asset. A familiar painkiller box can reduce doubt when the shopper has no appetite for a chemistry lesson. Specialist software can feel safer to a finance buyer even when a general tool shares most features. Bottled water acquires a completely different economic life in a supermarket, restaurant or hotel minibar. The frame changes the comparison, and the comparison changes the price.
Naturally, this attracts charlatans. A beautiful story cannot keep rubbish beautiful after repeated use. But “brand cannot rescue a bad product forever” is not the same as “brand creates no value”. Factories manufacture objects. Customers buy interpreted objects.
So I would stop scheduling brand after the “real work” as though it were ribbon for the box. It is already shaping what quality means, how risky the choice feels and which price seems plausible. Objectively identical is not commercially identical. The customer never receives the object without the frame.