Groupies, Ink, and, Souvenirs
A permanent marker worth five dollars can augment the value of a three-dollar product to a few thousand dollars in a matter of seconds. It all depends on whose hand the marker was held in when ink was made one with paper, plastic, or cotton.
To his loyal readers, Zakes Mda’s autograph will, more often than not, buoy up the value of his $20 book from a mere $20 to $100 — or at best — “priceless.”
It’s not that there’s anything special about what’s left of ink after it has been amalgamated with paper, plastic, or cotton. It’s what the inked means to the inked for, that dramatically increase the value of the inked on.
The monetary value of a painting depends on two things:
How deep (or shallow) the art collector’s pockets are. And, more importantly, how much does the painting mean to the painted for.
It takes a few hundred dollars, or less, to make a glove — Michael Jackson wears it once — and a few decades later — the highest bidder buys it at $350,000.
Both the auctioneer and the auctioned to are all smiles.
Significance and emotional attachment are arguably the most valuable weapons that a brand can take to a marketing warfare. While, being the cheapest is a time bomb.
It’s only after a product has failed to instill significance or evoke emotion out of consumers, that its production costs are placed at the core of their perception of whether they perceive the product as exorbitant or not.
(The challenge is for a brand to be so meaningful to consumers that anything that has its name on it is seen more as a souvenir, and, less as “… just another product.”
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— September 16, 2010.