Branding is for Cattle?

Baskin Strays From Herd, Asks Brand Marketers to Rethink Strategy, Jonah Bloom in AdAge.
'Branding Only Works on Cattle' Calls for Fresh Approach to Consumer Behavior
Jonathan Salem Baskin's "Branding Only Works on Cattle" is the anti-"Hidden Persuaders." A book that not only raises serious questions about many of the methods used by today's marketers, but actually argues that branding as most people think of it is bullshit and that its proponents couldn't get us to tie our shoelaces, much less reprogram our subconscious to buy their stuff. The central argument here is that for all marketers' talk, man-hours and budgets, they waste a lot of time on things that don't change consumer behavior.... "