The frenzy around the recent launches of the iPhone and Harry Potter book provide exciting ossibilities for brands. Personally, at one level, i cannot fathom what makes people queue up three days in advance to buy their piece of the phone or the book, but to each his own. I've queued up outside my son's school at 4am to get the admission form, waited in a stampedesque queue for 4 hours at Tirupati...
However, both iPhone and Harry Potter are aimed at the elite and if people at that level in the society can put themselves through so much to get their hands on the brand, it says something about the sources of personal identity.
It completely alters the hierarchy in the consumer-brand relationship--as marketers we are trained to earn our consumers but when the consumer has to earn the brand, one can only gape at the power of these ingenious marketers!
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