Can Brands Make You Behave Differently?

According to Physorg.com, a recent study from Duke University and the University of Waterloo suggest that even brief exposures to a known brand can significantly change audience reactions and behavior. The research, which is to appear in the Journal of Consumer Research (they've been coming out with some pretty interesting things), exposed college students to subliminal flashes of Apple and IBM logos. Then they were asked to come up with uses, outside of building a structure, for a brick:

People who were exposed to the Apple logo generated significantly more unusual uses for the brick compared with those who were primed with the IBM logo, the researchers said. In addition, the unusual uses the Apple-primed participants generated were rated as more creative by independent judges.

Apparently a follow-up study found that those who saw a Disney logo behaved more honestly than those who viewed one for the E! television channel. One of the researchers said that this might suggest to company to spend more on product placement and other opportunities for "brief brand exposures." But I wonder 1) just how well-established the brand needs to be, 2) how much advertising you'd have to do to make the flashes do anything, and 3) whether that would actually translate into any market advantage for the companies, or if the only result would be changes in non-purchasing behavior.