We all get accustomed to the power certain brands can have on society, like the queues snaking around Apple stores when a new product is about to go on sale.
However I have found a new and unexpected ripple effect of a brand in to a completely unrelated category. I hold my hand up to accept this example may have been around for some time but I had never come across it before.
Purely on a personal, non-business, level I’ve been helping out on a property search in Wiltshire. As it isn’t a familiar area to me I have made a few recces to check out the towns and villages. What became a differentiator between competitive towns was, wait for it – Waitrose!
This amazing phenomenon is a genuine selling point, as though Waitrose brings upstream values to the area, almost like a middle class magnet, helping to sort out the calibre of inbound residents. And in truth there is a kind of inherent gentility about Waitrose in Marlborough. Even the Saturday boys and girls are quite posh, probably earning a bit of cash to help pay for extras at their top school.
Without wishing to sound prejudiced – but here goes – it all feels like England used to be, somehow perfectly preserved in this lovely town. Waitrose is the proof if anyone has a doubt or query.
I wonder if all of this is clever marketing by the local planners/council because I’m fairly confident you won’t find a fast food chain in the high street. So no Big Mac or Spudulike in Marlborough, just pretty local shops, with a few upmarket high street fashion brands plus all of the leading estate agent brands – Knight Frank, Savills, Hamptons.
Having now done quite a lot of research and due diligence on property in the area it is factually accurate to claim that values within a five mile radius of Marlborough are higher on a price per square foot than similar property further afield. And almost every time you view a property, owners always mention the drive time to Waitrose!
It’s just incredible how a grocery brand can have such an influence on ‘positioning’ and the price of a house.
This post first appeared on Paul Simons’ blog paul-simons.co.uk.