In his book The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier presents five disciplines that help companies effectively create, cultivate, and protect their unique brands. In the process, he uncovers some interesting ways that corporate brands affect individual consumers:

Depending on your Unique Buying State, you can join any number of tribes on any number of days and feel part of something bigger than yourself. You can belong to the Callaway tribe when you play golf, the VW tribe when you drive to work, and the Williams-Sonoma tribe when you cook a meal. You're part of a select clan (or so you feel) when you buy products from these clearly differentiated companies.

Brands are the little gods of modern life, each ruling a different need, activity, mood, or situation. Yet you're in control. If your latest god falls from Olympus, you can switch to another one.