Love at First Sight

When I first saw him, my heart started beating faster and my hands got wet. I had never seen such beauty, such perfection - he was so tall, so well-built, the skin so smooth, the eyes so brown! I felt incredibly attracted to him and as if pulled by an invisible force, couldn’t help but walk towards him. I wanted to be close to him, touch him, undress him, feel him, taste him…

Sadly I was left to imagine this sweet sensation – costing nearly R1000 (€100) he was more than I could afford to spend on such a guilty pleasure…

Once I had torn myself away from my delicious daydream, I started thinking about the “Lindt-Effect”.

Some products, brands and shops have re-branded themselves and achieved an almost iconic status. South Africa’s food and clothes shop Woolworths is a good example for this. Everyone is obsessed with Woolies food: People talk about how nice it is, envy each other for shopping there and get excited when you bring Woolies food to a get-together “Oh wow, Woolies milk! Thank you so much, that is awesome!!!” Fair enough, you might not really get this response for milk, but certainly for fruit, meat, bread… and you would not get it for the same product bought at another equally good and possibly even more expensive shop.

There are a few other brands that have the same effect on people - Apple, Tiffany’s, Marks & Spencer Food, ghd’s, Jack Wills, Starbucks, Clinique and Lindt!

These brands do not offer (much) better quality, more innovation or better service. After all, there are plenty of equally good food shops, better baristas and superior chocolates. Yet I found myself “Oh-ing” at the thought of owning a pair of ghd straightners or using a moisturizer from Clinique rather than Nivea.

What makes these brands so desirable?

I think it is the message they convey and the feeling they evoke in the consumer – a feeling that is completely unrelated to the product itself.

Certain brands and shops seem to reflect consumers’ values, highlight aspects of their identity and become a way of expression.

For example, using a Mac rather than a PC says something about the values of a person: You are young, highly educated and live the high and fast paced life; you are successful, creative and innovative; you don’t comply with outdated standards and are always on the move; you like modern art, watch independent movies, listen to indie music and love Thai and Korean cuisine.

Similarly, a Tiffany’s necklace seems to say “I love you” more than a normal necklace and spending £75 on a pair of Jack Wills track suit bottoms has become a signal for a certain class of society.

While the bigger and more expensive iconic brands signal personal values and lifestyle choices, small fast moving retail goods (can you tell that I work a lot on the retail sector..?!) benefit from the spoil yourself factor.

After all, why would you spend R68 on a Lindt chocolate bunny when you could have a normal one for R5 and a just-as-nice one for R20? But while it may taste similar and we could afford to eat ten bunnies instead of one, it doesn’t give us the same feeling of only the finest ingredients, exquisite taste, and divine pleasure… The Lindt bunny is the ultimate treat that increases your self worth and can make an occasion special.

And with that, I will leave you, spoil myself and kill one of my chocolaty friends … preferred method: decapitation :)