Supreme Is the King of Love-marks?
In the Frontline show my class recently watched, “The Persuaders,” we were introduced to four subtopics contained in the realm of advertising. One of the most impactful subtopics covered for me were ‘love-marks,’ describes as loyalty beyond reason from consumers to products. For an all to brief moment when reflecting, I couldn’t find any of these relationships today. I looked at fan bases for businesses and found them to be purely the result of reasonable admiration for the product. Though, after going to lunch, seeing some neighborhood kids wearing supreme, I reconsidered my previous conclusion.
One was wearing ‘the classic’ white T-shirt with just the supreme logo in the middle, while the other was wearing a camouflage jacket that I later found out to be supreme. I wasn’t distressed by either of these products immediately, but after pursuing them a little more, I was astonished. I found that the retail price of many merchandise were around four times higher than the store paid the for it in wholesale. And, much merchandise is resold by consumers at much higher prices due to the stores limited drops of merchandise. An example would be the ‘classic supreme shirt’ I saw today. Though it most likely costs under $15 to manufacture, the store was able to sell it for over $50, and today, due to their limited stock, the shirt would sell for upwards of $200. Crazy that the shirt looks like any other white shirt with a red box logo in the middle.
I thought to myself, this has to be the effects of a love-Mark! Who could find such value in something so basic that makes its monetary value over 4 times that of its production cost? I knew I certainly couldn’t. So, I set out to find the most obvious signs of love marks, high concept ads and the likes that create them. That’s where I was stumped. You see, Supreme has adopted a zero dollars marketing strategy, yep, they don’t market at all. Though, in my research, I found their lack of marketing in itself to be reflective of a supreme company culture. That is, consumers feel that they’re more a community because they’re united through bonds to a smaller organization opposed to the super companies of Adidas or Vans, which are more well known.
Another untraditional business model that instills their love-Mark is their limited drops of merchandise. This, by my research, is the biggest factor in their fans crazed loyalty to the brand. The message ‘limited drops’ encourages is that Supreme is unique and a ‘visionary.’ These ideas are then projected to the individual stand-out style of clothes they offer. This concept is best portrayed by a meme I stumbled on online which does a great job of capturing supreme’s essence. It reads a comparison of two similar objects, one with a supreme logo, the other without. In addition the prices are extremely different. The person deciding finds that they “f*** with the vision” of the expensive supreme piece while the other, similar cheaper option is apparently sub par. This reference to “the vision” makes fun of supreme fans, or, ‘hyper beasts,’ attribution of money to a deeper meaning. Though, despite the joke, this occurrence of a love-mark is attributable to high prices and limited stock which create the deeper meaning referenced in the joke.
Well, pce out my bloggin friendos,
-Blogger Rex
One was wearing ‘the classic’ white T-shirt with just the supreme logo in the middle, while the other was wearing a camouflage jacket that I later found out to be supreme. I wasn’t distressed by either of these products immediately, but after pursuing them a little more, I was astonished. I found that the retail price of many merchandise were around four times higher than the store paid the for it in wholesale. And, much merchandise is resold by consumers at much higher prices due to the stores limited drops of merchandise. An example would be the ‘classic supreme shirt’ I saw today. Though it most likely costs under $15 to manufacture, the store was able to sell it for over $50, and today, due to their limited stock, the shirt would sell for upwards of $200. Crazy that the shirt looks like any other white shirt with a red box logo in the middle.
I thought to myself, this has to be the effects of a love-Mark! Who could find such value in something so basic that makes its monetary value over 4 times that of its production cost? I knew I certainly couldn’t. So, I set out to find the most obvious signs of love marks, high concept ads and the likes that create them. That’s where I was stumped. You see, Supreme has adopted a zero dollars marketing strategy, yep, they don’t market at all. Though, in my research, I found their lack of marketing in itself to be reflective of a supreme company culture. That is, consumers feel that they’re more a community because they’re united through bonds to a smaller organization opposed to the super companies of Adidas or Vans, which are more well known.
Another untraditional business model that instills their love-Mark is their limited drops of merchandise. This, by my research, is the biggest factor in their fans crazed loyalty to the brand. The message ‘limited drops’ encourages is that Supreme is unique and a ‘visionary.’ These ideas are then projected to the individual stand-out style of clothes they offer. This concept is best portrayed by a meme I stumbled on online which does a great job of capturing supreme’s essence. It reads a comparison of two similar objects, one with a supreme logo, the other without. In addition the prices are extremely different. The person deciding finds that they “f*** with the vision” of the expensive supreme piece while the other, similar cheaper option is apparently sub par. This reference to “the vision” makes fun of supreme fans, or, ‘hyper beasts,’ attribution of money to a deeper meaning. Though, despite the joke, this occurrence of a love-mark is attributable to high prices and limited stock which create the deeper meaning referenced in the joke.
Well, pce out my bloggin friendos,
-Blogger Rex
I absolutely agree that the cult-like obsession with brands like Supreme is highly unusual and interesting! One interesting aspect of their marketing is that Supreme attempts to portray itself as a "small community"-type brand, even though it also sells clothes at extraordinarily high prices that are unreasonable for the average consumer. Contradictions in marketing like these help show how consumer culture today cares more about following manufactured trends taught to them by corporations than about the real value of the product.
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