Palessi Prank

I've been seeing a lot of articles and posts talking about the social experiment Payless recently did to social media fashion influencers. If you haven't heard about this, Payless created an experiment where they made up a high-end brand, Palessi and launched it in a fake luxury store that they built and invited fashion influencers. They sold these shoes at "Madison Avenue prices" and fully convinced the fashionistas they invited that their shoes were luxury items. Payless did this experiment to show how shoppers perceptions of fashion items can be skewed by brand names or a label. The people they invited were so convinced that these were quality, name brand items that they paid $400 to $600 for a single pair of shoes. I know i've fallen victim to purchasing items because of the brand name. There are many retailers out there who produce quality products and don't have a brand name that raises the price, but so many people are still going after the items that have the well-known label. This experiment was eye-opening and as a person who is starting to be more price conscious when shopping, I'm going to be staying away from brand names unless I cannot find the same quality elsewhere. What do you think about this experiment? Is this something you're guilty of too?