Branding

Participating in the seasonal contests will increase your friendship points with the villagers and some of the festivals will also affect the cost of the goods you ship. Nine of the festivals will impact your brand associated with the profit you earn from twelve categories of items. You can find your branding by checking the bookshelf inside your farmhouse and selecting the first menu option, Assets, and then looking on the bottom screen.

When you win a festival, along with your festival prize you'll earn a brand associated with that festival. Since there are three classes for each festival, there are three branding ranks: unknown, popular, and expensive. The higher your brand, the more money you'll earn for shipping goods associated with that brand.

You won't have any brand associated with the twelve categories when you first start the game. Your brand will upgrade as you win festivals; win a beginner's class festival and get assigned the unknown rank, an intermediate will earn you a popular brand, and the advanced class will get you a expensive brand. Having the unknown brand will increase profit earned from shipped goods by 120%, popular will increase profit by 150%, and the expensive brand will increase money earned from its associated shipped goods by 200%.

Crops: Earning a brand for crops is done by winning the seasonal Harvest Festival in the crops category. This brand will affect your harvested crop-field plants (Turnip, Strawberry, Yam, etc.), regardless of size, as well as crop-based jams like Vegetable Jam, Pineapple Jam, and so on.
Fruit: You'll need to win the Harvest Festival in the fruit category to earn this brand. This affects the shipped price for tree fruit, fruit jams, Blueberry Jam (but not Blueberry itself), and Chocolate Pack.
Misc. Crops: You have to win the "other" category in the Harvest Festival. This category includes tea tree leaves, grains, Wasabi, Lotus Root, processed flours, and mushrooms.
Herbs and Flowers: Just like the other three, you need to win the flower category at the Harvest Festival to impact the shipped flowers and herbs. This will affect wild grown flowers and herbs as well as the ones you have grown on your farm, Herb Jam, flower bouquets, perfume, Cotton, Flax, Cotten Cloth, and Linen Cloth.
Cooked Recipes: You have to win the Cooking Festival on Summer 21 to receive this brand. All of the cooked recipes you ship, except for the jams belonging to the Harvest Festival brand, will earn you more money. You'll learn cooked recipes by increasing friendship with certain villagers, discovering them while fishing or mining, or winning festivals.
Honey: You won't be able to earn this brand until year 2. The Honey Festival does not take place in year 1 and the blueprints for the Bee Huts won't be available until you have started Dunhill's second Town Revitalization plan. This brand is a little challenging to get since the festival is so early in the year, but items don't rot due to freshness in A New Beginning. This means you can work on raising the star rank of your Bee Hut produced honey throughout the year and then save the honey until the following Spring for the festival. This brand affects the shipped profit for Honey, Flower Honey, and Royal Jelly.
Milk: The Cow Festival is on Fall 4. Winning this brand will affect produce and Fermenting Machine-made products from a normal Cow or a Jersey Cow; Milk, Jersey Milk, Good Butter, Great J Yogurt, Herb Cheese, etc. as well as Milk Jam and Yogurt Jam.
Yak Milk: Yaks and Cows are separate from each other, so you have to win the Yak Festival on Spring 18 - this won't happen in your first year. You will earn more money for shipping Yak Milk and Yak Milk based goods like Yak Cheese, Yak Fruit Yogurt, Great Yak Butter, and so on.
Eggs: This brand will upgrade the shipping profit for Eggs, Black Eggs, Gold Eggs, and the mayonnaise you can make with eggs using the Fermenting Maker Machine. You need to win the Chicken Festival on Fall 21 to be rewarded with this brand.
Sheep Wool: Earning this brand can be done by winning the Sheep Festival on Winter 18 and it only affects Sheep goods and Suffolk Sheep goods. You can use the Yarn Maker Machine to upgrade your wool into higher-profit yarn.
Alpaca Wool: The brand earned from winning the Alpaca Festival on Summer 4 will increase profits earned from shipping Brown Alpaca Wool, White Alpaca Wool, and yarn made from their wool.
Llama Wool: This brand doesn't affect very many items: Llama Wool, Great Llama Wool, Llama Yarn, and Great Llama Yarn. You can win ths brand by taking first place during the Llama Festival on Spring 4 starting in your second year or later.

Brand ranks will not decrease if you choose to enter a lower rank festival. If you've earned the expensive brand and then enter a beginner rank festival, you won't drop to the unknown rank if you win. You'll retain your highest earned brand.