Jeremy - contributing repeatedly and tenaciously to a 30 odd page thread, then suddenly having the temerity to suggest it's gone on too long having arbitrarily got bored of it yourself suggests you have little concept that other people might have things to say beyond what you consider to be the final word.
Which perhaps in turn suggests why trying to explain to you something that doesn't align with your deeply entrenched, immovable and often seemingly and quite bafflingly inward looking views could have been a futile pursuit from the outset.
Other people are still talking, and their views are as valid as yours.
Even if advertising is successful and say IBM wiped out Mac. How we would know it was not down to the product actually being better rather than the advertising being brilliant.
The iPhone outsells its rivals by a margin I assume is huge, yet I've heard that technically it's actually the inferior product. I certainly hear my iPhone 4 using acquaintances moaning about how poor an actual phone it makes.
If that's right (I use neither so can't myself vouch for it), we can I think safely assume that the power of the brand, in the current iteration of the instance you suggested, is having the desired affect on millions of consumers.
But that's anecdotal. Somebody else might be able to link to that chart comparing the specs of the smart phones which highlights Apple's failings. I can't. I'm happy to be proved wrong if I am.
I will though continue to stand by any suggestion I have made so far in this thread that quality and validity of a product can and often does play a distant second fiddle to the aspirations inherent in the brand, and that branding is a hugely effective, powerful and influential communication tool, with reaches spreading further than many people think.
I suspect many brands and names exist and pre-date when people paid attention to this sort of stuff - kellogs, heinz, Ford , VW shimano ?
Yes, they may have done. And the reason they're still hear is partly due to the fact that they kept up with changes in commerce. Alongside those long-standing companies were many more we've never heard of which fell by the wayside when consumer buying habits changed focus from need to desire.
Henry Ford was famously a no nonsense businessman, noted for that famous quote "you can have any colour as long as it's black".
Today, that very same company, still owned by the same family, uses this language:
"With its dynamic styling, wealth of intuitive technologies and precision-engineered performance [...] the new Focus delivers a truly addictive driving experience.When you start the new Focus, you start so much more than a car."
That, taken from the website, talks directly to the heart, not the head. Yes, those dots in my quote cover some facts about the car's CO2 performance which the head likes to hear, but for many, many people standing in a car showroom logic plays second fiddle to that which floats their boat. Just to find yourself spending multiple thousand pounds on a new car shows that logic has often already been thrown out of the window. And Ford knows it. "So much more than a car."
It's worth noting the above is trying to sell a practical, mid range, middle-of-the-road family hatchback. I'm sure we can extrapolate from there to the sort of language used to sell their more emotive products, such as those with convertible roofs, two seats, large engines or sporting pretensions.
Tellingly, another of your examples, Kelloggs makes quite a big deal of its heritage. Recent adverts have focussed directly on it. It has turned its longevity into a brand device. That heritage is hugely valuable to them, but only if they can ensure you remain aware of it. How do they do that? They build their brand around it.
They dedicate the top strip of every box to that well known logo, which is little more than a stylised take of the company founder's signature. And you make the direct link to its heritage immediately enough to use it as an example on this thread.
