Because the brand property is no longer in use, it is deprecated as of version 4.4. This makes it unnecessary to configure branding using an object, which now only has one property. So along with deprecating the brand property, the Branding object is also deprecated. Use a string instead:

// previously
axe.configure({
  branding: { application: 'axe-playwright' }
})
// current
axe.configure({ branding: 'axe-playwright' })

Closes issue: #2891