At least for me personally, it has come to the point where I don't believe advertisements anymore.
A brand used to mean something.
Now, it's a sticker covering the "Made in X" label, to arbitrage the difference between customer goodwill and actual manufacturing costs.
It's pervasive throughout the grocery store and department stores, but to me McDonald's is the poster child. Ostensibly you're getting a "McDonald's meal", but what that fundamentally means is you're getting minimal-cost food, manufactured as centrally as possible, with a bare minimum of prep done in the store.
Drop shipping and popup social media brands are the ultimate realization of this. If a brand means nothing, why shouldn't I just fabricate one, leverage the same supply chain, and compete on advertising alone?
How would I have heard about anything computer related in the 80s in the small town south about computer products?
Even today I would have never heard about Backblaze, Linode etc if it weren’t for podcast ads.
I wouldn’t hear about local concerts, events etc either.
The store owners were far from “experts”. They were either minimum wage workers at Sears who were in school or sales people selling to businesses.