Is brand relevant? To brand or not to brand

I was talking to a friend about branding and why would customer prefer to go for a brand and this point came up. Let us assume you have two options of mineral water available at a store: Bisleri & some local brand. Which one will you pick up? Bisleri is costlier than its local counterpart. My answer was like this... Am I dying, for water? If yes I don't care what the brand was. But if I was just taking water then I do.

Branding is important when the consumer looks for a distinctive feature, reason while purchasing. And isn't that important when the purchase is for fulfilling a non-distinctive, non-important need. Doesn't depend on what you think as a brand. Depends on what I think as a consumer. If you want to sell a brand, go ahead and ensure that the customer believes on what distinctiveness you are going to sell to him. If you are not opting for a brand ensure that your consumer believes that there is no uniqueness required and your product fulfills the requirement and works just fine. The stress should be on service, guarantee and performance.