My take is that brands were mined, starting in the 80s, for their reputation by private equity. Before that, good brands put their reputations on the line. The

My take is that brands were mined, starting in the 80s, for their reputation by private equity. Before that, good brands put their reputations on the line. Then PE came in and brought in MBA optimizers who realized they could have lower production costs by using overseas supplies. The quality obviously dropped as part of cost cutting. Now we don’t have middlemen brands, but a lot of the direct from the Chinese mfg products have safety issues. Brands serve as a backdrop who can be sued, and as such have become a bit of the quality control that isn’t available when buying direct. I, for one, have become a lot more brand conscious. For example, when I know a PE firm buys a company, that “brand value” almost immediately drops to zero for me. But when I know a company produces high quality and reliable goods, I’ll buy because I know somewhere there’s a person looking at preserving that value and doesn’t want to kill my dog or cat or child.