Brand stands for trust. Trust is built through value. Value comprises of quality, cost and benefits. Higher the benefits, greater the acceptance and brand value. Brand enhancement means increasing popularity of product for higher volumes of sales. Where brand is built through quality, price is increased on merit or can be reduced due to larger volumes of sales. This depends on the company selling the product.

Common method for brand enhancement is endorsement by celebrity rather than value addition through better quality. Through endorsements by celebrities, the brands thrive and prosper as average persons envying celebrity status have mindset that by using the endorsed product, they get to have something in common with the celebrity. So they pay for the feeling or illusion of being linked with celebrity through product!

Endorsement becomes a powerful tool for putting the product on pedestal hence the price hike follows! So the consumer pays through the nose to buy the product and flaunts the brand with a sense of being in an elite club. This is an utterly illogical and insane mindset.

For such show offs, the rich can splash their money but for a middle class youngster, it is a tough job to raise extra money, though it may be possible through extra work or resorting to wrong activities, even crime. It is wiser to choose an intellectual circle where brand matters little and one can feel at home and enhance one's understanding and knowledge.

Another reason for joining the brand cult is the inferiority complex - persons with such feelings think that using a brand product peps them up and wards off the feeling of inferiority.

After understanding the right relevance as well as wrong influence of brands, one must rather choose to go for product with quality and value at a reasonable cost and avoid falling in the brand trap.

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