Brand value is much more scalable as a source of profit than use value for consumer goods nowadays. Look at this interview w/ Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine among others.

The transition that has happened since [logos were used simply as marks of quality to foster trust] -- and it's come in waves; it wasn't invented in the '90s, but it sort of skyrocketed in the '90s -- was the idea that if you wanted to really be successful in a highly competitive marketplace, simply having a mark of quality on your product isn't enough to give you an edge. In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce products, where your competitors can essentially match you on the product itself, you need to have something else. You need to have an added value, and that added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand. And this is spoken of in many different ways, "the story behind the brand." I don't think we can understand this phenomenon just in terms of how easy it is to produce products. I think it also has to do with a reaction to a culture in the '80s where people were longing for some kind of deeper meaning in their lives.

So what brands started selling was a kind of pseudo-spirituality -- a sense of belonging, a community. So brands started filling a gap that citizens, not just consumers, used to get elsewhere, whether from religion, whether from a sense of belonging in their community. Brands like Starbucks came along and talked about their brand as itself being a community, the idea that Starbucks is what they like to call a "third place," which is not their idea; it's the idea of basic citizenry needing a place that is not work, that is not home, where citizens gather. And they have privatized that idea in a way, and that's really what is behind a lot of these brand meanings: a privatized concept of what used to be public.