It’s hardly definitive but take a look at this data for a brand search and a product search.
I often have a discussion with SEO types about branding and usually it goes, “people buy things because of the thing the thing does”, when the reality is it’s more often than not about the way it makes people feel.
Brand is all about how the consumer feels, it is an emotional thing.
And it’s not even just about purchases, it’s about social media too. People share content because of how it makes it feel. People are more likely to share content from people they have met and liked that people they do not, not because the content changes, but the way the person feels about the other person changes.
You can see this if you analyse the various tribes of SEO, they tend to rewteet each other. Not because of the content, but because the concept of the tribe is being invoked.
The trick is not to get your product to connect with the customer, but to build an emotional relationship between the consumer and the brand.
This is how you rank in 2015