I design brands for a living at the moment and would definitely agree. Good branding will make a company seem competent than one without, though that can absolutely mask some shortcomings with the company and be taken advantage of in order to make bad food seem fancy, for example. It’s not always a problem but it good branding is occasionally used for that sinister mean. In general, I think every company should strive to have good branding, and would much rather prefer both bad and good companies have high quality branding. Branding is absolutely always a tool to get more eyes and attention on a business, and that could just as easily be done for a small business with good quality products looking to get noticed than a crappy company with crappy products trying to catch eyes in order to push their crappy stuff.