A deliberately fictitious brand acquired real economic value through sheer recognition.

Evidence

During 1987-88 a popular television show, “Indietro Tutta,” was broadcast in Italy. It was invariably interrupted in the middle by a dance number, always repeated in exactly the same form, with seminude Brazilians performing a samba and singing in pidgin Portuguese. The catchy lyrics spelled out the name of a brand of chocolate, Cacao Meravigliao, an imaginary sponsor the show pretended to be promoting in order to spoof this type of advertising. The program continued for several weeks, prompting a mad dash among real chocolate firms to buy the rights to the fictitious name. The producers of the show refused to sell a commodity they had never intended to create, but found it difficult nonetheless to resist the pressure of competing firms. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 370

Categorization

• SEED: A potential essay on how brand value detaches from any underlying product — the Cacao Meravigliao case generalizes to trademarks, memes, and ‘brand equity’ as social construction.
• XREF: connects to: Fake amateur authenticity proved profitable and launched careers — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 964; Marketing a dry product succeeds by rebranding it as a hilarious personal condition — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 186