Re:Coke, McDonald's, General Mills a/b testing (Score 1)

I feel like the usual-case truth is somewhere between the two? "Getting your brand out there" registers your company / stuff / brand / whatever as "a thing that exists" in the minds of many people, and I'm pretty sure that has a non-zero effect on decision-making - if nothing else, "has this product / company existed for a while?" is one thing feeding into heuristic-assumptions around "is this product / company more likely to be legit?"