It's hard to see the immediate benefits of branding. Unlike a short-term marketing campaign, the results take time. Much like building a reputation, branding occurs gradually. Trust is earned little by little, one touch point at a time. To illustrate the type of leverage that can be gained by building a brand, let's compare two pillows and their packaging.
You may recognize the Sobakawa Cloud Pillow from an infomercial. It's hard to spot, but in the upper right corner you'll notice the "As Seen On TV" icon. The box is filled with text explaining why you should buy the product; it's comfortable, it's contoured, it has over 10 million beads, it comes with a free pillow case. The name of the pillow (or company?) appears three times in a different font. The box works really hard to win you over.
Compared to the Sobakawa packaging, the memory foam pillow from Malouf is relatively simple. There are no callouts or blocks of text to explain why this pillow is superior. The name of the company appears only once on the front of the box and the font is so small, it's almost invisible.
Both pillows sell for about $25 on Amazon, and both have several reviews from satisfied customers. Each company sells a lot of pillows. It seems like branding didn't even make a difference then right?
Let's dig a bit deeper.
As far as I can tell, Sobakawa only has one pillow in its line: the Cloud Pillow. Malouf, on the other hand, has a memory foam pillow, a dough pillow, a gelled microfiber pillow, a Taylay Latex pillow, and pillows with a blend of those materials. By building a strong brand, Malouf is able to communicate what it stands for without having to write it on the box. When you buy a Malouf pillow, you know it's going to be comfortable–no matter what the material. If for some reason the pillow you ordered doesn't fit your style, you know they probably have something suitable. With the Sobakawa, it's all or nothing. How long will they be around if something goes wrong? It's hard to say.
As intangible as branding can be, we start to see the difference it can make by comparing these two pillows. When selling a single product on an impulse buy, such as the Sobakaw Cloud Pillow, the ShamWow, or the Snuggie branding may not actually be worth it. However, if a company wants its name to stand for something and lend its reputation to a long line of products, branding is a necessity.