Gresham’s Law is named after the British financier Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), who was posthumously honored. Its principle, “bad money drives out good,” illustrates the phenomenon whereby, when two types of currency coexist, a rise in the value of precious metals leads to the withdrawal of the higher-quality currency, as its intrinsic value exceeds its face value. This higher-quality currency is then withdrawn from circulation to be hoarded or melted down, while the lower-quality currency, lacking significant intrinsic value, continues to circulate.

Applied to the field of marketing, this law highlights the fact that a high-quality or technologically advanced product compared to its competitors does not automatically guarantee market dominance. It can be dethroned by a less sophisticated but more affordable product that fully meets consumer needs. To describe this phenomenon, American marketing experts sometimes use the expression “to betamax”, in reference to the history of Sony’s Betamax video recorder, withdrawn from the market in the mid-1980s in favor of JVC Matsushita’s VHS, which was less efficient but more widely accessible and widespread.