Perhaps I'm naive, but the corporate treatment of brands as commodities fills me with loathing. The name of the manufacturer and the brand of the product should mean something. It should stand for the people who made the product and the company that manages its production, distribution and marketing.

In our market-driven society, however, brands mean nothing. Shedd's Spread was not made in a shed. Nothing advertised as homemade is actually made in a home. Log Cabin syrup is not made anywhere close to a log cabin, nor is it the kind of syrup that used to be made with a press powered by a donkey going round and round and then boiled to the proper thickness. Most syrup sold at the store uses corn syrup, flavored with a tiny bit of maple syrup. The name itself is basically dishonest.

Walk the rows of a modern supermarket. The brands almost invariably attempt to endow the product with an aura of genuineness. This is particularly true of highly processed or particularly unhealthy foods.

It's like the concept of credibility. There was a time when a person's word was his bond; that "a great name is to be better chosen that great riches." Credibility, on the other hand, is a commodity that can be used up, like money in the bank. Or it might be considered a capital good, that, like a factory machine, can be depreciated over a period of time, after which it is worn out and needs to be replaced.

Credibility is consumed by telling lies. A name associated with integrity and trustworthiness has more credibility to expend than a name not so well-regarded. Accountants and economists quantify credibility when they place a value on corporate "good will."

So if your corporation has a reputation for hucksterism and dishonesty, the solution is not to stop cheating and deceiving your customers but simply to acquire a corporation with a positive balance in its credibility account.