Supreme announced its collaboration with Nabisco, the Supreme Oreo, on twitter a couple of days ago. And the Internet lost its mind. The collection ( well that’s what they call it) launched in stores on Feb 20th and will be available online next week.

As is usual with Supreme, resellers have auctions on E-bay, where bids stood at a cool $ 2600, not bad for an $8 pack of 3 cookies eh ?. Is there a secret sauce? Expensive ingredients? a potion for immortality perhaps in the cookie ?. Highly unlikely. So what’s driving this atypical behavior?

Supreme’s carefully nurtured consumer constituency. The 20-year-old streetwear brand sells expensive casual wear and enjoys a cult following among its consumers. It only ‘ drops’ small quantities of any collection, driving up a craze among its followers, with reseller margins that make scalpers rich. And they work with other luxury brands and celebrities which drives up their appeal exponentially.

So what are the takeaways for marketers from Supreme’s success ?.

Firstly that the traditional boundaries of street vs haute couture brands are going to blur really fast. High fashion, jewelry, and casual wear brands will find synergies work better than individual efforts.

Secondly Nurturing your core audience should be the prime role of any marketing team. Merely calling your communication personalized or hiring a digital agency or a few influencers is unlikely to help.

And Thirdly, Truly successful brands need to make the transition to a cultural norm, standing for some core values. Supreme makes money for being Supreme, and not for just the products it sells.