LOGOLOGY

How Supreme Created the Most Valuable Logo of All Time

Is the streetwear company that gamified artificial scarcity really worth billions?

The November sale of streetwear icon Supreme to apparel and footwear giant VF Corporation for north of $2 billion raised the question of what exactly was the retail conglomerate getting for its money? To the uninitiated, Supreme’s business model seemed to be based on little more than slapping its familiar red and white “box logo” on T-shirts and sweatshirts produced in limited numbers to create a perception of exclusivity. Could a logo really be worth that much?

The value of intangible assets like logos has been a topic of conjecture for more than a century. In 1912, the most valuable trademark in the world was said to be that of Royal Baking Powder: The company considered its name to be worth “$1,600,000 a letter,” for a total of $715 million in today’s dollars. Coca-Cola’s name, in contrast, was seen to be worth only $5 million at the time, an inflation-adjusted $132 million today.

Obviously, it’s quite difficult to attach a dollar figure to names and logos. In the days when a company’s worth was measured mainly in terms of the factories and file cabinets it owned, any excess value beyond that of those physical assets was…