“Original imitation” is a preferred way of Marrakech luxury knock-off merchants to describe their wares. There, one can find anything from Tiffany x Wilson basketball to a Millionaire Speedy to the Chanel 25. Most of it looks original; it is also unmistakably an imitation. The souks’ luxury knockoffs are derivatives.
A derivative is a financial instrument whose value is derived from an underlying asset.
Cultural derivatives have the same structure: cultural products, signals, rituals, and community behaviors whose value is derived from underlying cultural asset — a brand world, a subculture, a founding mythology, recognizable brand codes, an aesthetic sensibility.
Before derivatives, there needs to be underlying assets with stable value. In cultural economy, these are:
Behind the paywall, you will find the types of underlying assets, types of derivatives (collaborations as options, merch as futures, etc), and why the cultural derivatives framework is more useful than traditional brand strategy templates.
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