Brands, what are they good for?

I was asked by Spiked to talk at there event last night. A top discussion kicked of by the always thought provoking professor James Woudhuysen. I talked in a rather excited manner about my experiences with brands that had enhanced the social status of disenfranchised consumers. You can read the text I based it on here. -my speaking style means this is only an outline of what I said and I completely skipped the bit about small people in sampling teams. My favorite quote of the night was "all brands start ugly" (use makes there beauty)