What convicts can teach us about branding

I wrote this article for David Airey's blog in April 2012 and it got a very good reaction so I thought I'd repost part of it it here:

In September 2009, Neil Stansfield of Northamptonshire was jailed for over two years for buying own-brand, non-organic supermarket food, repackaging it as well-sourced organic produce and selling it on at a huge markup to highly reputable food retailers. On the one hand what he did was a shameful act of manipulation that undermined an already beleaguered organic market and the honest work of a lot of passionate food producers. On the other hand it was a hilarious example of how branding can increase the perceived value of a product. Read the full blog on David Airey's website