The New York Times Magazine published an interesting article 11.16.08. It’s called “The Brand-ness of Strangers” and discusses the power of influence from people wearing or using branded objects.

In the article, Rob Walker, discussed whether fleeting glimpses of brand-marks influence consumer behavior. Walker cites recent work from the University of Maryland which studies “incidental brand-consumer encounters.”

In one study, subjects were show 20 photos of people in a variety of situations and instructed to focus on facial expressions. Afterwards, subjects were offered a bottle of water from a universe of four brands. The learning: the experiment had nothing to do with facial expressions and everything to do with which kind of water they chose. Subjects had been segmented into groups, based on how many of the viewed photos incidentally included a bottle of Dasani. Among those who looked at Dasani-free photos, roughly 17% chose that brand. However, about 40% of those who viewed a group of photos with a Dasani presence made the brand their selection. Since subjects who actually noticed the Dasani brand in the photos were eliminated from the results, the spike in popularity came from exposure that the subjects weren’t even aware of. The hypothesis is that “we have these brief social encounters fairly regularly, and they may have an impact on our choices.”

Walker’s article also examines Polo Ralph Lauren and other brands and debates the impact of logos tied to maturation and saturation.

I found the article to be a good reference for behavioral research. Enjoy.