“Emotional and self expressive qualities,” by contrast, are not some mythical concept–they are as real as price and quality. It assumes that we buy shit for other reasons than what they actually do (i.e., functional value).

Again, the emotional or self expressive qualities of brand like AA might be, “Makes me feel independent, “Makes me feel socially conscious,” “Connects me to other people like me,” or “Helps me feel part of a community.” We wouldn't pull these terms of a hat, but rather conduct actual customer research.

Sure–these seem like bullshit. But any quant research would reveal that such ideas play a much larger role selling t-shirts than the garment itself. This is one school of thought–fundamentally it might seem inefficacious, but at least there is evidence to support it and we're not relying on intuition-based marketing dogma.

Here's what would happen if behavior economists took a look at building brands. Nothing. They affect change at the margins.

P&G has created and maintained some of the most successful brands for decades. Brands like Tide were not created by the brilliance of a founder (though a valid track), but by careful maintenance from consultants and business-folk–those who you detest in your comment. Founder's will always be an incredible source for inspiration, and Steve Blank (someone whom I follow closely) has great thoughts on a founder's role in marketing (often debilitating).

Anyway, the founder vs. marketer debate is an on-going debate, with blanket statements like yours favoring the former.

These things are distractions. They appeal to greedy executives, optimistic marketers and journalists. At the end of the day, brands are built by personalities – people who love what they are doing and make gutsy decisions – and then ironically, destroyed when investors and consultants bring in autistic, short term strategies like these.

At the best they are optimizers. Never creators or builders.