Trademarks that clean pockets

By Daniel CadenaLópez (Ecuador)

If the devil wears Prada could be that he has more money than Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world according to the magazine Forbes, or he is simply one of the innocents that let themselves to be influenced by the publicity and spend even the money they don’t have in status, freedom, independence, glamour, style and authenticity that supposedly gives them to wear a garment of an expensive trademark like that.  

Is incredible to see that in a world that boasts of being competitive about business, every time there are more people influenced by the illusion offered by trademarks and spend substantial amounts of money in names. Everybody talks about good business, which means to have utilities, but what kind of benefit generates to drive a Bugatti Veyron, the most expensive car in the world, from Volkswagen, which costs 1 million 700 thousand USD, when we could drive around without any financial trouble or fear of a kidnapping driving a Nano, the cheapest car nowadays, around 2 thousand USD. Of course, the Nano hasn’t Volkswagen in its family tree.

Just to give an example, the Italian trademark Diesel is one of the first in sales in Ecuador, with prices in it´s cloths between 35 and 100 USD. It´s impossible to find pants for less than 100 USD and Ecuadorians buy them, even when they live in a country with a 240 USD as basic salary. It means that some costumers of that trademark sacrifice around 40 per cent of their salaries when they buy jeans and presume the irreverent and innovative way of life that Diesel sells in that country. 

Of course, not everything is negative about trademarks, because some truly sell confidence with them, because when you buy a TV Sony, you feel more relaxed than when you buy a “Chanchung”, for example. Well, is profitable and smart to get a product and its trademark, when is about probed quality or easy way to get the spare parts.

Making a good business while buying doesn’t mean to go with the cheapest stuff, because quality does go linked with the price, but making mental calculations when the moment of taking out the cash or signing the baucher comes, for knowing if we pay to the trademark more than what really represent the production and benefits of the fabricators or we are really taking home something that worth our money.