Product placement - what we need, what we want

I have a moment of epiphany as I'm eating one nutella brand knockoff: that for a much cheaper price I could get something good to put on my bread...

And then I've stumbled upon a relatively unknown guitar brand which had me thinking, 'hey, this is as good as the 'real' thing...'

But then I thought further into it: are branding really all it ought to be?

Is it a matter of want vs need? Do we really want it? Do we really need it? Why do these different brand offer the same deal at different pricing?

On one case it's food, on another one it's on entertainment/art. But the same question arise: is the 'imitation' no better than the 'real' deal?

Does it matter if our wants are ever fleeting?

Are we buying certain brands because they are what we WANT, or is it entirely out of NEED? For some, they might have no choice for either.

So all this complain about branding is just ridiculous for me, especially when it comes to things we can live without.