The origin of branding is about continuity. A lot of goods used to be sold by weight / volume out of barrels in the shop. If you went to your local shop and bought a lb of something for a given price, and it was great you had no way of knowing next time, (or if you were in a different shop) whether the next scoop of stuff would be as good value. The point of a brand is the stuff should always be of the same quality, and it comes labelled/packaged/sealed so that you can trust the seller is selling what they claim (and not selling farmfoods stuff out of a waitrose barrel) - so if you've bought a given brand before you should have a fair idea of the value you'll get if you buy it again.
Some brands are expensive because there goods are worth it, in the sense that the cost reflects the material and labour cost, some are expensive because they are the known quantity amongst their competitors and that reasurrance is something you can charge extra for.
If you have caterpillar's reputation for good boots but you start turning out cheap crap then thats very profitable for a while, loyal customers need to be disappointed more than once before they drift away.
Theres big money to be made from buying successful businesses then cutting staff/quality/stock to the point where everything starts falling apart, your goods are crap, your stocks are too low, service is terrible. For a short while customers will keep coming back so profit margins become huge, for a moment. This makes the business seem more valuable than it is so you sell it again for an inflated price just before all the customers walk away.
