When you choose the reputed college to attend over the cheaper one closer to home, when you pick a job at an established multi-national over the exciting new start-up, when you decide to read the new novel by an author who has had a few bestsellers before over one by a debutant, when you decide to buy a burger at McDonald's over a roadside joint, you are buying peace of mind.

This is the business that marketing professionals are in. It is our job to induce peace and reliability in our customers' minds the moment they think about our product (or our competitor's). That is all there is to building a brand. Nothing more. Nothing less.

People will have you believe that the colours in your logo or the font in your name are vital for brand building. That's all what comes out of a bull's backside. The only thing that matters is whether the customer relies on you to meet her expectations or not. If she does, you have a good brand.

Yes, there are people who forego admission at a reputed college to stay closer to home, and people who forego a plush job offer at a multi-national to work for an exciting start-up, but these are too few in number to move the revenue needle in any significant way. So the marketing professionals only bother about them when the marginal revenue from putting in more effort to please the former class of customers is zero or less.