In this week's New Yorker there's a brief article by James Surowiecki called Turf War. It's about Nike's failure to dominate the golf and soccer equipment markets despite their revered brand. The power of branding, Mr. Surowiecki says, is overrated, it's not enough to slap a logo on a poduct to make it successful, you actually have to make something that's better than the competition. "The surest way to get stronger sales is to sell a stronger product." I'd add that this innovation does not have to be along any of the dimensions that the current product dominates. As The Innovator's Dilemma points out you can take over a market with a less functional product if it dominates on a axis that is ill served by the current leader. I've written about this and open source software as Rules of Innovation - Clayton M. Christensen and Ant as an example of the Innovator's Dilemma.

Mr. Surowiecki's remarks are in contrast to those of the NoLogo movement who believe that branding is evil, or at least close to evil. An interesting and more detailed explanation of the other point of view is from Economist. The references to the article The Case for Brands I found weren't actually on the Economist website but through Google.

I think there is certainly something to the Economist's central thesis, that because brands make a product easily identifiable the company must make sure the product lives up to the promise the brand makes. Of course this may not be quality, it may be cheapness or consistency, but if the product doens't live up to the branding it's very easy for consumers to avoid it because the brand makes it easy to identify. The Economist feels that we have the power over branded products, if we don't like them, or the ways they are made, stop buying them and they must change. After all, it's easier to boycott Nike shoes to make them change their labor practices than to boycott generic shoes where you have to check the label to see where they claim to be made. In the same way, it's easier to stop McDonalds putting beef flavouring in their fries than the burger place down the road because McDonalds are easily identified and have a large number of customers to satisfy.