Diferentiating your company with an "exclusive brand experience" has led to another kind of race to the bottom. More and more brands are trying to be the most "iconic", "relevant", "fresh", "sexy". The commoditization of these concepts is everywhere. They get so diluted and commericalized in the barely veiled desperation for relevancy that now I avoid such "experiences" whenever I realize I'm being "engaged with". I might buy your overpriced tshirt on its own merits, just don't try to tell me I'm changing the world by wearing it. Such a concept has a very precise, limited application that gets unsustainably depleted when used by a bunch of clothing companies. It's the marketing version of strip mining.
In my experience selling a consumer product, barely a month goes by without a new PR/marketing agency telling me we should “go for the green angle”. Few people seem to understand that, like you said, these common differentiators, in my case “green/natural”, have become extremely commoditized.
