Why brands still matter: Insights from ‘From Brand to Bland 2’

Behavioural Architects removed people’s favourite brands from their lives to see what difference it made. The results, here in a series of short films, are astonishing and highly entertaining.

In Brief

We often see ourselves as rational beings, but behavioural science shows otherwise. Most of our thoughts and actions are driven by unconscious processes. This is partly practical—we face too many decisions daily to process consciously.

To cope, we rely on mental shortcuts, or intuitive ‘System 1’ thinking, with our rational mind often justifying decisions we've already made subconsciously.

This is especially true with brands. We gravitate toward familiar products using heuristics and are influenced by cognitive biases, such as social proof. Advertising plays a key role in embedding brands into our subconscious, keeping them top-of-mind.

However, in an ever-evolving world, where nothing is certain, questions remain around the role of brands. Do brands still matter in this increasingly atomised, uncertain world of hyper-personal bubbles? And if brands do still matter, does TV – itself fragmenting – still matter to brands?

To explore the role of brands in our lives, we used behavioural science to observe what happens when people are deprived of their favourite brands, to reveal how deeply brands operate beneath our subconscious. Building on the foundations of From Brand to Bland (2017), we wanted to see if the role brands play in our lives had changed as much as the world has changed since 2017 – pre-Covid, pre-AI, pre-ecommerce.

Key findings

1. Brands support core human needs, shape identity, and bring familiarity, stability and comfort
2. People develop deep, personal bonds and connections with their favourite brands, often rooted in years of family traditions and long-standing associations
3. Advertising has the ability to drive mental availability, ensuring brands are known and recognised
4. Advertising also helps build new associations that connect with cultural shifts, ensuring relevance
5. TV advertising is crucial to create, sustain, and evolve deep brand associations – consistency is key
6. The unique trust people have in TV confers to the brands they see on TV
7. Economic turbulence is making us more discerning about where we spend our money
8. Strong brands deliver value to people – and they are willing to pay more for this value

Methodology

We worked with The Behavioural Architects to design a social experiment to demonstrate what branding means, the implicit impact it has on our perceptions, and the difference it makes to our purchasing decisions.

Often, the connections we have with the things around us are so entrenched that they become subconscious – we only notice them when they have gone. Through depriving consumers of their most cherished brands, we could reveal how those brands bring meaning into people’s lives.

Sixteen participants completed a ‘life logging’ exercise designed to help identify which brands were the most pertinent in their lives.

Each recruit was then deprived of a couple of their most cherished brands for a week and sent a ‘substitute’ to use instead. In all cases, this substitute was the same product but cleverly disguised in neutral packaging – anything from tea to cleaning products to shampoo to breakfast cereal. The participants were unaware the products were identical and most assumed they had been sent a different brand to ‘test’.

Participants recorded their thoughts and experiences across the week and were interviewed extensively before the experiment and afterwards.

The Theory

Brands don’t just appear. They’re built through consistent marketing that forms deep subconscious connections over time. Each exposure reinforces these associations, both conscious (like logos and taglines) and unconscious (emotions, visuals, beliefs). Together, they shape how we perceive a brand, what it says about us, and how it influences our choices - ultimately guiding whether we identify with and invest in one brand over another.

What role does TV play in building these brand associations?

TV advertising is powerful as it leverages certain cognitive biases almost immediately, often before deeper brand connections have been built through a variety of different ways:

1. Costly signalling builds trust: Trust in a brand often rises with the perceived cost of its marketing, with TV seen as more credible due to its higher assumed expense.
2. Proximity to quality boosts appeal: A brand’s image is shaped by its surroundings. If a brand advertises alongside high-status companies, it’ll be perceived as more appealing. Compared to social media, TV requires a relatively large up-front investment. There’s little risk of being surrounded by cheap products.
3. Claims made in public are more believable: We are far more likely to trust a promise if it’s made publicly. TV, as a medium that reaches huge numbers of people, is a perfect fit for this.
4. Good mood makes people notice: Reaching customers when they’re happy means they’ll notice more and subsequently be inclined to think positively of the brands they see.
5. Mental availability makes it easier for people to buy: When a brand comes easily to mind in a buying situation, it increases the likelihood of being chosen over competitors.
6. Social proof that a brand is popular due to its media presence: Seeing a brand frequently in prominent media, signals to consumers that it’s trusted and widely used, reinforcing its credibility and appeal.

For more insight into the cognitive and behavioural biases that help explain why TV advertising is so uniquely powerful, read The Value of TV: A Behavioural Science Perspective.

Findings

Brands bring colour and connection to people’s lives

We quickly saw how deeply people connect with their favourite brands, often describing strong emotional ties and reasons for their loyalty.

These subconscious associations significantly influenced their behaviours and attitudes, producing a visceral reaction to having the ‘wrong’ brands imposed upon them. When individuals were given unbranded substitutes for their favourite products (despite them being identical), they reacted negatively, often feeling discomfort and perceiving the substitutes as lower quality. This revealed how deeply embedded brand associations influence perception, with the absence of branding triggering a negative response. One respondent claimed that the bleach aroma wasn’t ‘as strong’ whilst another claimed that his replacement VO5 powder was making his hair seem bushier.

The experiment highlighted that a strong brand identity plays a crucial role in shaping their overall experience. Throughout the experiment, three key themes emerged:

Stability

Brands provide a sense of stability and comfort, especially during times of disconnection, and their removal triggered strong feelings of loss. Despite initial confidence, participants experienced unexpected emotional impact, revealing a deep subconscious drive to avoid losing familiar brand connections.

One respondent stated that ‘trusted brands impact your life by giving you a sense of security…the tastes and the brands you associate with those tastes are like a consistency in your life that I think people like me might rely on. They want to feel like something in their life is what they expected to be.’ Another respondent claimed that the replacement Oral B toothpaste doesn’t provide as much protection as their usual product.

This highlights how brands offer a sense of comfort and stability, especially in an unpredictable and constantly changing world.

Identity

Brands have the ability to shape our identity, acting as symbols of our values, aspirations and lifestyle choices. They don’t just reflect what we like, they communicate who we are to the world and often signal the social groups we identify with. By aligning with certain brands, individuals can reinforce their self-image, feel a sense of belonging, and even shape how others perceive them. This subsequently builds trust in a brand, as consistent alignment with a brand fosters a deeper emotional connection. Over time, this trust makes the brand feel familiar and dependable, offering a sense of reliability and peace of mind in a world full of choices. Consumers come to rely on these brands not just for quality or performance, but for the reassurance and stability they represent in their daily lives.

One respondent dwelled on the heritage of Yorkshire Tea, claiming that ‘it’s got a tradition with it, it’s got a name with it that makes you think it’s tried, tested [and] been there a while.’ Similarly, another respondent stated that ‘trust means quite a lot when it comes to a brand because you’re relying on that product for getting washed or making a meal or washing the floors…you want that product to be what you want it to be…you want it to do what it’s telling you it’s doing on the bottle.’ And lastly, another respondent stated the importance of his cereal, claiming that ‘Kellogg’s leads me to feel like I’m starting my day right because I feel like I know what I’m going to get, and then I feel a sense of gratification when my expectations are met.’

Connection

Brands serve as powerful anchors in consumer decision-making, shaping perceptions from the outset. When branding was removed, participants consistently judged identical products as inferior, often with strong emotional and even physical reactions. This reveals the deeply personal relationships people form with their favourite brands, connections often rooted in cherished memories, familiar routines, and meaningful associations with people and places.

One respondent claimed that his Nescafe Gold Blend ‘put me on the map that this is where I am… I’m back as me again because it’s been a part of me for so long.’ Another respondent stated that he ‘personally loves a brand that has vibrancy. It resonates with me as a person.’ These brand connections run far deeper than preference alone, often anchored in childhood memories and long-standing emotional associations. A respondent claimed that they now drink Nescafe because of their mum, and how another claimed that ‘Lurpak is such a nostalgic feeling because my mum always used to get that in the fridge when I was a child.’ One respondent shared the special role Nando’s plays in his life, recalling that his first date with his wife took place there. He reflected; ‘the brand, the experience, the memory. It all comes packaged as one. In some ways, when you eat that Nando’s sauce, it brings back all of those things with it as a free gift.’

In summary

The analysis and interviews clearly show that advertising plays a vital role in generating, sustaining, and evolving brand impressions over time. It creates mental availability by making brands known and easily recognisable, maintains them by reinforcing their distinctive rewards and points of difference, and evolves their meaning by building new associations that reflect cultural shifts, ensuring brands remain relevant in a changing world. Among these, TV advertising remains especially powerful—offering broad reach, emotional impact, and the ability to shape brand meaning at scale.

So, what does this mean for you? To build a strong, trusted brand, you need to invest in providing real value that people recognise and are willing to pay more for, because strong brands drive stronger financial returns. They also serve as pillars of stability, connection, and identity, so it's essential to consistently demonstrate and remind people of the meaningful role your brand plays in their lives.

More specifically, TV advertising plays a vital role in building strong, trusted brands by creating, sustaining, and evolving brand associations. Its trusted environment and shared viewing experience foster deep emotional connections, making it one of the most powerful tools for long-term brand growth.