You can never coast on past performance?

James Surowiecki writes "Twilight of the Brands" in The New Yorker this week explores his view of the fragility of brands in an information-rich and an empowered-consumer marketplace: "consumers are supremely well informed and far more likely to investigate the real value of products than to rely on logos."  He makes the case for a significant erosion of brand loyalty ("Only twenty-five percent of American respondetns in a recent Ernst & Young study said that brand loyalty affected how they shopped"). Surowiecki thinks consumers are the winners; established brands are the losers -- comparison shopping is amazingly easy; upstart competitors can challenge market-dominant players.  In an off-hand comments, however, he underplays a critical point: "brands retain value where the brand association is integral to the experience of a product . . . or where they confer status." If that's true, then brands just might be more important than ever as brands need to lure the consumer to trial -- and as many brands may have minimal distinguishing features.