History & Marketing Strategy of Supreme's Streetwear Brand

Supreme’s hisotry was a inspirational story. Supreme is a streetwear brand founded by James Jebbia in New York City in April of 1994. James Jebbia is from Sussex, England. His father is an American who served the Air Force. His mother comes from England. In fashion city, James, not surprisingly, shows keen interest in fashion. He used to go to London during weekends to feel that kind of atmosphere. After his parents got divorced, he decided to go to New York City and seek refuge with his father. He wanted to achieve the American dream in New York City. (Robert, 2017)

Supreme is famous for its product diversity, marketing strategy, and the change of logo. The marketing strategy of Supreme may sound incredible in the early stage. No one can touch the products. The attitude of sales clerks is bad. If customers want to buy some things, they have to ask sales clerks if they can check in the storage. However, this service did not affect the sales at all. People thought this brand was mysterious at a certain level. Limit to sale is one of their marketing strategy. “A good logo is clear and simple”. ( Williams, p43).

Whenever it releases new products with the classic “supreme” logo, there are usually long lines. One of the key marketing strategy is to collaborating with many artists and celebrities, singers, models to expand their marketing share with different styles. What’s more, marketing share of Supreme is huge. I cannot find The most interesting part for me is that Supreme hardly do advertising. There are only two ways customers can buy Supreme products with retail price. One is going to the stores, the other one is that going to its website at 11:00 am EST on every Thursday.

The craziest pairt is that many of my friends check the official website over five times daily just try to know when new release date is and where products release. (Thomas, 2017) Furthermore, a company can change its logo when it targets different markets. (Williams, P48) Box logo of Supreme is inspired by Barbara Kruger, a female artist. Supreme keeps it until now. The best part of logo is that Supreme is always changing when face to new collaborations. In fact, every time it collaborates with different individuals, Supreme team will create a new logo with new content. For example, the collaboration is about Middle East, the logo becomes Arabic. If the artist comes from Ireland, the background layer of logo becomes orange, white, and green instead of red. (Chrisdanforth, 2018)

As far as I am concerned, Supreme is a great brand that has its attitude and passion. James’s team is doing what they want to do. They don’t care about scandal about celebrities, or the street design with weird contrast colors, and so on. They don’t send samples out. They are not interested in other things they do not care. They always stay low key. And they are learning new things all the time to meet customers’ needs. Actually, they want to be successful as much as they want to breathe.

Work Cited:

Sullivan, Robert. “Charting the Rise of Supreme, From Cult Skate Shop to Fashion Superpower.” Vogue, Vogue, 10 Aug. 2017, www.vogue.com/article/history-of-supreme-skate-clothing-brand.

Roberts, Thomas. How Supreme's Unique Marketing & Business Strategy Works. 18 Apr. 2017, www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-supremes-unique-marketing-business-strategy-works-thomas-roberts.

Jessica Williams, Prism Level 4 + Online Workbook Reading and Writing. Cambridge Univ Pr, 2017, pp. 43-44, 48-49.

Chrisdanforth. “The 19 Most Obscure Supreme Box Logo Tees.” Highsnobiety, Highsnobiety, 4 July 2018, www.highsnobiety.com/2015/11/03/best-supreme-box-logo-t-shirts/.