As a marketeer, I spend a lot of time dealing with branding. I spend a lot of time obsessing about creating a recognizable brand, a brand that has hard financial value to the consumer. There are agencies you work with to look at how your brand stacks up against others. The these companies help you see the raise and fall of your brand value.
Last week, I got a “street” sense of brand value without working with an agency.
My house was burglarized. A team of thieves came into my home for approximately 3 – 10 minutes and walked out with things I possessed. Things that had brand and monetary value. What they took and what they did not take was interesting.
In a house full of electronics, headphones, etc. the burglars took only the following items: (1) iMac with its associated chargers/electronic plugs and the keyboard (2) an iPad (3) an SLR camera from Sony (4) jewelry (5) chinese new year red envelopes from my tree in our house [left from our party]. That’s it. I had a television, many high-end speakers that were portable and non-portable, high-end headphones that cost hundreds of dollars some of which are still in boxes. But all they took really was the Apple products.
Apple has brand value on the streets. My other electronics such as speakers and headphones are amazing products but lack resell value on the streets. For example, I have multiple sets of headphones in my home that amount to over two thousand dollars. They are high-end audiophile headphones. But the headphone brand of choice for resell on the street is likely Beats. People love that brand and they would likely purchase those items used. Since none of our headphones were Beats headphones, they had little to no street value for resell in the black market that the burglars deal with. You can bet that if my headphones were Beats, they would be gone now too.
So real life brand test. In 10 minutes or less, what would you take that have real brand and financial value on the street?