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The idea inside the product.

There’s a solid article on rocketing worth reading in the current issue of Fast Company. It’s called “The Inevitability of $300 Socks.” The authors, Chip and Dan Heath, who also so happen to have a book on the market now called Made to Stick, make this fundamental point: “Products make the leap from pedestrian to premium when their creators think of them as ideas.” People buy into and fall in love with ideas, not products, per se. It’s the idea of craftmanship or beauty or intelligence that people want to be associated with. As the authors say: “Luxury has become more about personal pleasure and self-expression than status.” It’s the “idea” that a product represents that reflects who we are. “You are, it seems,” the authors write, “what you blow a lot of money on.” There’s more than a little truth in that. For sure.

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