I remember thinking this way when I was in undergrad. I wrote off branding, advertising, and marketing in general, naively thinking I understood those things be

I remember thinking this way when I was in undergrad. I wrote off branding, advertising, and marketing in general, naively thinking I understood those things because I didn't buy most products I saw in ads. I wasn't self-aware enough to recognize that, when in bookstores, I would gravitate to books with the "MIT Press" name or modernist logo, or the O'Reilly branding, or Harvard's Veritas shield. I'm sure there are books I only thumbed through because of some visual signal (besides the title) that made me feel "that university has probably been around for a while, so they've probably figured out how to deliver what the title promises". Extremely generic logos don't offer distinction, and it's a bad idea for a strong brand to not clearly signal that brand in their products and marketing, especially in fields where there are many competitors (ie elite higher education).