Issue #3

How to successfully become a meme? The case Supreme

The brand Supreme is notorious. Everybody knows it. Me, too, and I have no idea how their clothes look exactly. I'm not even interested in fashion, but I still know Supreme. Why? Because Supreme is a Meme—and not just because it rhymes nicely. So, let's look at how Supreme became a meme, how it benefitted their success, and how our brands can become memes without being cringe-worthy.

For the purpose of this article, I had to familiarize myself with Supreme, so I looked them up. As I mentioned, I am not much into fashion, but what I saw shocked me.

To say that the website looks outdated would not even do it justice. Yes, the design is intentional, but this website is as simple as possible. I like minimalistic designs if they don’t look like a 10th-grade IT student programmed them. Nevertheless, the products shocked me even more. Their next drop will include a leather jacket with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the back. But the most obnoxious product surprised me even more. Supreme sold a brick. Yes, you read that right, a brick. A brick with Supreme written on it. For an affordable 30 Dollars. I must repeat that once again to believe it: They sold a brick with their logo for 30 dollars. And it sold out in minutes, according to mensjournal.com. I am convinced this brand is a social experiment, and honestly, I respect their game. If you get people to buy a brick for 30$, then you are doing something right. But how exactly did they achieve this meme status?

I already listed on reason. The Supreme Brick became a massive meme because everybody was making fun of this ridiculous product. That sounds bad at first. People making fun of your brand and products can't possibly be a good thing, right? It can. By becoming a meme, people share it with their friends or post their memes about it. This massively increases brand popularity. People who formerly did not know Supreme are now familiar with it. And because it was in a Meme and made them laugh, they will remember it. They might remember Supreme as the weird company that randomly sold a brick, but they still remember the brand. A social media advertising campaign would have cost them way more for a fraction of the memorability.

I want to make an important point: Supreme does not post memes themselves; they introduce products or hold events that will be memed. The memes are always created by the users, not by some social media managers from Supreme.

To not just stay in the realms of being a meme, Supreme collaborates with other huge brands. The collaboration with high-fashion Louis Vuitton was essential in setting Supreme up as a premium streetwear brand. The collaborations with Nike were also interesting. What happens if you take a typical Nike shoe, pop the Supreme logo on it, and sell it for over double the regular price? The answer: Supreme will seem to be the brand adding all this extra value. And what’s valuable is something that the people want. A status symbol differentiates them from the rest. If a collab shoe costs double as much and is way rarer than the normal Nike shoe, owning one becomes a status symbol. This aspect of being a status symbol becomes anonymous with the brand, in this case, Supreme. The same goes for the collaboration with stars. If you see a star wearing Supreme, the brand appears to be a status symbol.

So, after understanding what makes Supreme attractive to consumers, let us return to the meme aspect. The Memes only serve the role of recognition. They make you aware of the brand, but the established branding gets you to buy. And when it comes to creating viral meme-worthy content, no brand does it quite like Supreme.

Another example is the collaboration between Oreo and Supreme. In this collaboration, Oreo cookies were sold for an unbelievably high price. The differences to the standard cookies were just the red color and the Supreme logo on top of it. This collaboration only exists for one reason: to get people to make memes about this ridiculous idea. And, of course, it worked. There are dozens of examples like this. Other examples are the Supreme/ Mac Tools Workstation, the Supreme Lawn chair, or even a Supreme Ziploc Bag. Yes, I would wish that I made that up. And no, I do not want to argue that someone who buys a Supreme Ziploc bag is not completely out of his mind. But this is what creates the memes. People look at it and think about how crazy it is. To share it and joke about it, they make memes. The memes become viral, and people share them with their friends. And in the end, Supreme wins. Because what the memes do is bring a whole lot of publicity towards Supreme without them spending even one dollar on it. The memes turn the users into their advertising agents. They turn a cold audience that had never heard of Supreme into a warm audience that at least knows the brand. Now, the only shop Supreme needs to do is to make this warm audience want to buy their clothes.

Supreme really is the (sorry in advance for the joke) supreme example of leveraging User Generated Content and Branding. But what can we take away from this?

My learning goes as follows:

Do not try to get on the bandwagon with any meme that goes viral. I see many established companies taking part in the biggest meme trends. But having your executive dance to the latest TikTok song is not the way. It might get you viral, but not because it is funny, but because it is cringy. Supreme never posts memes on their channels; they post their products and let the users do the rest. So, if you want your brand to go viral, think about creating memes that will not hurt your brand. Maybe think about a random collaboration with another brand that will not hurt your branding. Athletic Greens and Havanna will become viral but end up hurting both brands. However, a Ferrari and Apple collaboration might work well. It is never guaranteed because not every funny product of Supreme goes viral, but if they do, they go crazy. Still, there is a little uncertainty about this approach. You can never guess how the meme will portray your company. If you are looking for a little more certainty, use paid User Generated Content. This will not make you go viral but will help your growth if people pick up on it. And, of course, be creative in your approach.

That does it for this week. I am now off to snack on some Supreme Oreos. See you next week!