"Image" competition favors companies large enough to hire the top cognitive competitors.

The Orwellian implications of using psychodramas to stimulate consumption of packaged goods like coffee are certainly worthy of study in their own right.  But for the purposes of this discussion, a simpler issue of economics comes to the fore:

Who can afford to hire the psychologists and perform all the background research needed to produce such an exotic form of marketing as the 30-second psychodrama?  Could Al's Market around the corner roll out a comparable campaign to tout its own house brand?

When competition moves off the substantive plane and onto a cognitive one, the odds shift significantly in favor of firms that are large enough to pay for the services of the most adroit cognitive manipulators (packaging consultants, P.R. firms, advertising agencies, etc.)