The danger of a 'brand bubble'
John Gerzema and Edward Lebar
In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote his famous book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,to describe various marketing phenomena. Of special note was his passage on 'Tulipmania', the madness that resulted from the Dutch aristocracy's craze for tulips which lead to fantastical prices paid by ordinary people. At the height of the hysteria – a few months between 1636 and 1637 – the craze for tulips suddenly withered, leaving thousands s of Holland's most successful businessmen holding worthless assets while the less affluent who...