There's a fourth, crucially important axis - costly signalling. Spending a ton of money on mass advertising sends a clear and impossible-to-fake message that yo

There's a fourth, crucially important axis - costly signalling. Spending a ton of money on mass advertising sends a clear and impossible-to-fake message that your company is in it for the long haul. Sony could exclusively buy targeted ads on social media and the metrics would probably say it's a good idea, but their brand would be fundamentally less trustworthy if they stopped sponsoring soccer teams and buying prime-time commercials. That's why you intuitively trust their TVs more than a random brand you've never heard of, even if you don't consciously realise it; Sony have invested a lot more in establishing their brand, so they have a lot more to lose by tarnishing it. It's no guarantee that their TVs are the best, but it's a fairly strong indication that they won't be absolute crap and that the warranty might actually mean something. Prior to the media age, bank branches were invariably grand and expensive buildings. On one level, that's just a waste of money; on a more important level, it's a costly signal of permanence. Would you deposit your life savings with a bank that operated out of a trailer?