Category: Brand Strategy

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The Brand Credibility Paradox

May 4, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

Is over emphasis on your hard-core credibility limiting your brand’s influence and growth?

I’ve seen it a lot. Brands achieving the level of success they desire by focusing on one thing for a hard-core, loyal following. They excel at specialty-store and are beloved by extreme activity junkies whether they climb, hike, run, swim, tri, skate or board. Then they get stuck by the following question:

How do we grow our brand and not destroy our industry cred?

Our friends at Sugoi are a great example. They create technically advanced gear, enjoy a great cycling heritage, and are proudly worn by hard-core cyclists. So what is the problem?

Research shows time and time again that there are people who spend upwards of $5,000 on a bicycle and another $1,500 on apparel and gear to compete at a near Olympic level. But only a few. And a few more commute on bikes. Most people are what Sugoi calls Starbucks Riders. Someone who spends a ton of money to dress the part, then simply rides down to the local Starbucks to look extreme while enjoying their carmel Frappucino.

This challenge isn’t limited to cycling. I saw the same problem with REI too. Anytime a group of individuals who are passionate about a specific set of activities infiltrate and then stay inside an organization, their marketing and advertising focuses on the most extreme expression and conditions their gear can endure.

This continual emphasis on the extreme hard-core adventurer not only limits who can belong to and then contribute to your cult brand – it ultimately dulls the senses of everyone in the organization and stifles product development, marketing, and recruitment. According to Outdoor Retailer 2013, most people sporting Patagonia and NorthFace use the gear to drive 5 miles and scale Mount Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer case of their local grocery.

I have seen this in the wellness category too. Brands with street cred for pioneering the natural, wellness and organics movement, who focused every aspect of communication, recruitment and product development on making certain that their original Hippier-than-thou positioning was preached above all else. While they wrestled with their significance, Target and Walmart offered similar, more approachable products for today’s Yoga Mom and her 28 year-old, Chia swilling, tea-guzzling counter-part. Both of these consumer profiles now get their health & wellness needs met without having to give up their love of high heels, designer jeans, enjoying a cocktail or wolfing down the occasional box of mac ’n cheese.

The fundamentals of Cult Branding have the power to make humans respond viscerally, kinetically and socially. However, when practiced diligently, they create a paradox—one that is easy to see in others and nearly impossible to see in ourselves. The very elements that make us great (ritual action, social distinction, status claims and solidarity) work on us, the brand stewards, too. And these powerful forces, if incubated (and not allowed to evolve through outside influence) will stunt our growth, make us grow a beard, get weird and disappear into the mountains.

3 brand credibility sink holes and 3 ways to crawl out.

Over time, I began to see the pattern in organizations that needed brand revitalization. They kept falling into 3 problem areas (sinkholes) that plague many successful passion focused industries like sports, outdoor and wellness. When the pattern is broken, by outside influence, leadership change or the pain of failure, it actually creates a stronger, more meaningful brand that will enjoy preference, marketplace success and even more cult-like stature.

Breakthrough brands are created by people with passion and vision.  People want to follow them. It’s easy for these visionary leaders to enroll others in their quest. The sinkhole doesn’t show up until after success arrives and the followers have key responsibility. Those in the pot, accustomed to the water temperature, tend to shift focus to the financial report and maintaining the status quo by emulating everyone else in the industry rather than innovation. They risk being boiled alive.

How to crawl out.

Forget about features, benefits, and competition. They are table stakes to any category. Forget about your long-storied history and the pain you might have around eroding relevance. Reconnect your brand team with the core purpose and higher ideal the product was created for in the first place, which was likely not just about making money. Then cast a bold new vision.
Think about Apple, between Jobs (ha!). Recall that Apple seemed unstoppable. Then everyone, including themselves, saw Apple as a dying brand. They all just sat in the pot until it began to boil. Remember that they revived their business through visionary leadership, outside influence, and a renewed focus on making human experiences visceral, universally ritualized and forging solidarity. When Apple focused on computing, they tanked. When the focused on revolutionizing something everyone loves (music) they rocked.

Questions to ask.

– Who is your Chief Vision Officer?
– Is their primary job description in conflict with the concept of vision?
– Are they involved in optimizing the business? If so you need an outside influence.

Success sows the seeds of future brand failure. When something works we look for sacred cows to idolize. The brand stalls because, after everyone tires of the Facebook likes and high-fives, they focus their efforts on optimizing what worked, instead of earnestly working to evolve and adapt to our rapidly changing world. They try and win a race by standing still when they should be looking for new ways to take what they know and help more people.

How to crawl out.

Ask yourself some dangerous questions.
– What is your team doing to make cheeseburgers out of these cows?
– What does your product represent to people that is highly valued and difficult for them to replace? (Hint: it isn’t your jacket.)
– How can we flip this on its head to create a new conversation or add something meaningful to someone else’s budding conversation?
Then, once you know that you are in new territory, it’s time to craft a clear and relevant value proposition. The best example of this to me is a piece I wrote about Nike Fuel Band.

When your company has done all the right things to build your brand –from having visionary leadership that has invented good products focused around an ideology, recruited employees that want to be indoctrinated with your philosophy –there is a natural tendency to believe that you are your best customers. This creates a closed ecosystem that chokes the company vision, stifles product development and creates marketing messages that are self-focused and trite. Need evidence? Every outdoor brand has a set of athletes or enthusiasts who flood their brand’s social media channels and website with their extreme adventures. Not everyone can be a NorthFace, ProBar, or Adidas. You have to find your own authenticity. Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign is a great example of a well known brand using its values to move away from everyone else in the outerwear category.

How to crawl out.

Talk to your customers. All of them, and their friends who cannot relate to your brand message because “it’s just a little to hard-core” (and strangely, lacking authenticity for them).

The hard questions.

– What are the hopes and dreams of these people?
– How can you help those who want to belong to your cult, but will never go on an extreme trek, live a better daily life?
– How is your team reframing what you can do to be involved in this evolution?
– Who should you be inviting to tea?

We live in an information age and knowledge is power, but information and knowledge alone will not get you to where you want to go. It takes discipline. The process of successfully navigating a landmark brand shift requires open-mindedness, a rare mixture of confidence and humility and the ability to press on with a beginners mind while seeing a future that nobody else can see yet.

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

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The Cult Brand Value Equation

April 17, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

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All Beauty, No Brains: When Graphic Designers Fail to Understand Packaging Hierarchy

April 16, 2013  |  an article by Diana Fryc

We here at Retail Voodoo are big fans of ProBar. Do you know it? We’ve been buying them for sometime now. You can find them in your local Health Food store, Whole Foods, or REI. They are very wholesome, filling and just plain yummy. That said, I’m confused…like shopper confused. A couple of months ago, I went to buy my favorite, the Superberry & Greens, but what happened next is a tale of packaging tragedy, a story of beauty over brains. I saw new packaging, quite lovely new packaging, but all of a sudden, greeted by a wall of orange, everything looked the same. I had to squint and spend time discerning if I was buying the correct bar.

The whole label hierarchy broke down, and while I meant to leave the car double parked and grab my fav, I ended up getting a big fat ticket instead (*LIE*). Don’t let beautiful packaging override brains. Make sure you manage the information hierarchy correctly, and for goodness sake, change colors, or include high contrast visual cues to make it easy for those of us too addled to read on the fly to buy our favorites.

Diana Fryc

For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.

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5 Ways Sports & Outdoor Enthusiasts Craft Their Sense of Self with Brand

March 27, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

When it comes to what people do with their free time, there’s just something different about the way sports and outdoor enthusiasts see the world. Ask a PC or a MAC lover about their favorite home computer and they may wax rhapsodic about what their favorite hardware can do, that its competitor can’t, and they may try to convert you, but you get the sense that the attachment has to do more with the way their minds work than their hearts. Ask most fans about their favorite sports team and they’ll undoubtedly sing their praises and explain why their squad is better than any other, but it’s clear that they are speaking from their hearts…with a few statistics thrown in for good measure. Ask runners and climbers about their passions, however, and their replies are more visceral. They get a faraway look in their eyes and they will talk about their favorite marathon or the peak they scaled with such intensity that you might wonder if they are experiencing it all over again. Call it a runner’s high flashback if you will, but it’s also something else: It’s what makes outdoor enthusiasts different. Instead of sitting in a chair waiting for the latest piece of hardware to come out or hoping for their team to execute a hat trick, or catch a Hail Mary pass; these people get up, get out and take charge of their own experiences. It’s also part of what make them an attractive target audience. Why?

You can debate all you want about whether outdoor enthusiasts are wired differently, one thing for sure is that their pastimes become their passion quite quickly. In much the same way that a spiritual seeker looks for a religion that fits their belief system, these amateur athletes are also looking for the right fit. For the spiritual person, the first indication they’ve found what they’re looking for could well be a feeling of belonging. In outdoor pursuits it could well be a given sport’s equivalent of the euphoria marathoners feel when they reach their highest performance level.

Once they know their passions, they seek out the like-minded. They join running clubs, they get into cycling groups and they look for more information about their new-found passion. That might mean looking at magazines that cater to their crowd and often contain ads and reviews of the latest gear they’ll need to get the job done. Or it could mean hitting social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to find folks with similar interests. Before they know it, what began as a virtual group named the Bellingham (ski)Bums ends up becoming a real time ski club with people who share the same environmental ethos and values. First, they meet every week or so, then suddenly they find themselves spending much of their time together, on and off the slopes, either skiing or wishing they were doing so. Ironically enough, the process not only leads to the establishment of an informal tribe of skiers, it also allows each of its members to feel like individuals because they have found a group where it’s safe to be themselves.

Although most people like to believe that all of their purchasing decisions are rational, it’s a little more complicated than that. While there’s no shortage of companies that make gear that will keep mountain climbers safe, there are other factors that enter into the decision including fit, comfort and appearance. After all, if they want to be thought of as more of an environmentalist they might be more likely to opt for Patagonia than REI gear. If they want to be considered as favoring more extreme pursuits, they might favor NorthFace. At the same time, if members of their tribe all favor equipment from REI, chances are they will, too. Part of it is desire for acceptance of course, but another part of it is reliance on the wisdom of the tribe. If a newcomer to the tribe notices that the people she respects all use REI gear, she will accept that they made the decision based on their experience and will follow in their footsteps to gain their acceptance. That could help explain why retailers are so eager to provide free lessons to beginners. Once people who are curious about a sport, say attend a snow-shoeing lesson at REI, they may be more likely to buy the products they’ve seen in action. In addition, the people who attend the same workshop may end up making friends with other participants, hanging out with them and creating a whole new tribe that just happens to prefer REI gear.

Endurance Triathletes are a good example. Active Network research shows that 44 percent of these outdoor enthusiasts have household incomes of more than $100,000, they’re considered among the most desirable customers to have and they are more than willing to pay big bucks to support their outdoor habit. In fact, Active Network estimates that 35 percent have bikes worth $2,000 to $4,000 and another 18 percent have spent between $1,500 and $2,000. Most could easily get a bike for less, but they not only want to have the best, they want to be seen riding the best and be identified with that brand. Their willingness to open their wallets represents an opportunity for marketers and brand managers. Since many enthusiasts are so passionate about their pursuits, they often find ways to spend money on the things they think they need even in economic downturns. Awareness of the characteristic allows marketers and brand owners to spend less time focused on the bottom line and more time on quality. Most outdoor enthusiasts won’t tell you that money is no object, but they see their gear as an investment and do so much research that they are willing to pay more for higher quality. All a company needs to do to cash in is show why its quality is better than its competitor’s.

The question for for marketers is this: Now that you know these five steps and their stunning simplicity, what will you do to help deepen customer loyalty, increase interaction and grow your brand as you elevate it to cult status?

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

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Mine Mythos to Discover Your Brand’s Cultability

March 11, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

There’s a reason that companies with aspirations of greatness don’t name themselves things like Bob’s Climbing Equipment or Bob’s Auto Parts. Sure, Bob is a great guy, members of the local Rotary club sing his praises and his name has the advantage of reading the same backwards and forwards, but there’s no poetry or mythology that surrounds the name other than, possibly, its association with the movie “What About Bob?” Think about it. When’s the last time you heard anyone mention the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant chain with anything other than nostalgia or a remembrance of a forgotten era? Perhaps there’s a reason.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, as Dick’s Sporting Goods and REI prove, but companies with more picturesque names may well have a better chance of lasting long enough to plant a flag in the public’s mind by creating their own mythos.

A number of outfitting companies come to mind. The name Patagonia paints a picture of a far-off, somewhat mysterious mountain range that you’ve always promised yourself you would get to, but probably never will. The NorthFace stirs images of the less traveled, more difficult way up a wind-blown, frost-bitten summit. Even something as clunky as Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) can create its own mythos.

Getting the right name is only half the battle, though. If you really want your brand to take off, it helps to mine societal and corporate mythos and turn it into the gold that helps attract cult-like loyalty.

In case you skipped that day in your humanities class, mythos is the pattern of basic values and attitudes of a people typically transmitted through myths and the arts.

Look at three three outfitters turning mythos into gold with three markedly different consumers of very similar products.

When mountain climbing equipment supplier Chouinard Equipment decided to make active wear for its customers, it named the line Patagonia in part because it didn’t want to dilute its brand and also because the area sounded intriguing and distant, like such seemingly mythical places as Timbuktu or Shangri-La. As the company wrote in its catalog at the time, the name gave people “romantic visions of glaciers tumbling into fjords, jagged windswept peaks, gauchos and condors.”

Although Chouinard knows that many people buy Patagonia because they like the colors, others are attracted by the iconography and want to learn more. When these folks discover what the company calls its “dirtbag way” of business—focusing on environmental sustainability rather than just selling a product—they’re hooked because they share the same values. From there, it’s not much of a stretch for them to want to find out more and even read field reports from fellow Patagonians.

Patagonia uses its mission to provide a platform that allows its customers to imprint their own myths and stories through its The Dirtbag Diaries where customers talk about their personal experiences. The company takes it one step further with The Footprint Chronicles by discussing its ongoing attempt to use its supply chain to achieve its goal of environmental sustainability. In so doing, it not only keeps its customers engaged, it also helps the company build a mythology surrounding its efforts or a sort of on-going origin myth.

It also has an ambassadors program where people who are involved in each sport blog and provide more street credibility by discussing areas where the company hopes to extend its brand and make a difference. If this were a cult, these guys would be the people who look for new recruits at airports.

The combination of iconography and shared values helps create a cult-like following among its loyal customers, but not in the bad, need-for-a-deprogrammer-kind of way. Instead, it’s more along the lines of a I-like-what-you-stand-for-so-I’m-going-to-shop-with-you-even-if-you’re-more-expensive-kind of way.

To climbers, The North Face is shorthand for the path less traveled and there’s a reason. It’s so damn difficult. Consequently, any company that would adopt that name would have to live up to some pretty exacting standards to survive such trying conditions. The North Face not only delivers, it plays to the self-image of its customers by encouraging customers to explore while using it, making them members of a cult of explorers.

That’s just half the battle in an effort to mine the mythos. Once the company calls its consumers explorers, they feel the need to rise to that occasion. As with Patagonia, The North Face provides a technology platform to do so. They go out and create new myths and legends based on what they’ve been able to do with the equipment by using applications like the Snow Report to talk about what they’ve done.

Not all of its customers were members, but those who were remained loyal (thanks to member discounts, quality gear and a great deal of customer support, including instruction on how to get started, what to use and how to use it). The shared sense of mission helped make the company a success.

Later, when REI realized that its customer base was aging and that the brand wasn’t connecting with younger consumers, management changed everything from its store plans to its packaging and its use of symbols. The update helped attract a new generation of followers (without alientating its loyal core), thanks in part, to a new generation of product design evangelists, and marketers with long term vision.

The company also leveraged the goodwill that already surrounded its brand by expanding into new areas that helped the company win more new converts who will tell REI’s story in new ways.

REI’s decision to purchase 11 million kilowatt hours of green power, which would offset 20 percent of its overall power usage is one way. When it did so, it suddenly popped up on the United States Environmental Protection Agency’ list of top 10 retailers who purchase cleanly generated electricity. It also promised to make its REI Adventures trips carbon neutral, to be climate neutral and generate zero waste to local landfills through focusing on green buildings, product stewardship and energy efficiency to name just a few.

As a result, the added layer of commitment allows for great storytelling which will expand the company mythology as it reaches new followers with deeper passion for the environment.

Now, it’s up to you. To paraphrase a software company’s old advertising campaign, where would you like your mythos to go today?

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

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The Importance of Vocabulary in Marketing

March 6, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

People, people, people! If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s important to get our vocabulary straight, as a recent piece in ADWEEK shows. The story details designer Ben Pieratt’s efforts to create and sell Hessian, a company without a product, for $18,000. The price tag would include the name, a URL, Twitter account, more than 20 logo designs, a Web site theme and a brand book.

“Hessian is an invader, a brand in waiting,” the ADWEEK story quotes Pieratt as saying. The story also refers to Hessian as a “brand identity.”

Not only is Hessian not a brand, it’s also not a story. Templated design systems have been around for a decade.

The real disturbing story here is that a publication that specializes in covering advertising and marketing refers to Hessian as a brand (a collection of opinions we hold based upon the promises they make and keep). If we in the marketing world cannot get our terms straight we risk leading our clients to believe that we don’t understand what they’re talking about. As a result we could face the headache associated with turning this very specific phrase into something meaningless and generic.

Aspirin, anyone?
David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

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Is Authenticity the Next Dead Brand Pillar?

March 5, 2013  |  an article by Diana Fryc

If a brand has to say that it’s “authentic” you can bet it isn’t. These days, it’s said about so many people and so many things that aren’t authentic, that it’s pretty much lost its meaning. When it comes to marketing, it’s become an empty buzzword.

Let’s just talk about the concept and put it where it ought to be—in the hearts and minds of a specific group of consumers who are hungry for a brand that feeds their need for self-realization.

Authenticity isn’t about brands saying it—it’s about being it. Don’t use the “A” word to describe your brand: let your customers do the talking. If your brand has credibility as authentic, as unique and connecting, your customers will turn into rabid fans and proclaim it for the all world to hear. They’ll do the buzzing and they’ll turn more people into converts. They will use the “A” word. That’s how everybody will know that it’s for real.

11 Guideposts to an authentic brand

  • Tell your story. No varnish, please. If it’s direct and real, it’ll resonate.
  • Bare your soul and character.
  • Be one of a kind. No imitation of other brands allowed.
  • Appeal to a specific group of consumers.
  • Always tell the truth and never deviate from it.
  • Speak a universal truth that’s relevant to specific people and don’t worry about offending non-believers.
  • Focus on something deeper and more meaningful than products and services.
  • When there’s a screw-up, own the mistake and apologize pronto.
  • Practice self-awareness before attempting to stretch beyond your brand’s categorical boundaries.
  • Live your core values. Be articulate, write them down and stick to them.
  • Create an internal culture that champions employee ownership of your brand.
Diana Fryc

For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.

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Leverage Self-Selection Using Brand Ritual

March 4, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

The best-loved brands are enablers; they help their devotees to live better, more meaningful lives. These brands make life richer because they don’t focus on selling products and services or features and benefits; they satisfy the deepest emotional yearnings that people have.

Cult brands help us to belong; they provide self-fulfillment, emotional satisfaction, values that appeal to our higher natures and more. Transcendent brands are really spiritual, going beyond even appealing to the emotional nature of human beings. That’s why they inspire an almost religious fervor. Using this analogy, we understand the power of the world’s most successful brands to inspire. Just as with any religion – specific language, symbolism and ritual create what I refer to as “exclusive inclusion”; the sense that its fans are all part of an exclusive group; meaningful, important and treasured members of their tribe.

Cabela’s, IKEA, Lululemon, Starbucks, and Tiffany’s expert deployment of these 21st Century brand principles, demonstrate their power in action. They employ vivid brand language that is both visual and verbal. Tiffany’s is best represented by its robin egg blue box with white satin ribbon; Starbucks by its ethereal, seductive siren and more recent, hipster-than-thou design language, Cabela’s tagline as “world’s foremost outfitter” of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear are all symbolic to their fans. Not only because they recognize the brand language specific to them, but because to their followers, they truly stand for something that no other brands can supplant.

Ritual ? Routine.

Ritual is behavior embedded with meaning, purpose and belonging. Ritual is not the same as habit or routine. Routines become habits. Rituals, when they are vitally enacted by the community, become a way of life. Rituals are the glue bonding together memory, identity, community, and daily living.

There are three elements that differentiate a ritual from a simple routine.

  1. It must be done outwardly, socially, in public so that the community can sanction and reinforce the action.
  2. There must be symbols that can be seen or touched, similar to a diploma or wedding dress.
  3. A ritual must be regular and predictable. It happens at certain times of the year, or when someone reaches a certain age.

Brand rituals occur when a person ingrains a product or service (and their associated behavior) into her daily actions. This forms a kind of intimate relationship. One that goes beyond habitual consumerism and moves into mindful and purposeful use of the brand and its offering as a vitally important part of daily existence. When done well, ritualized brand behavior aligns the experiential and emotional.

“When done well, ritualized brand behavior aligns the experiential and emotional.”

This kind of ritual becomes a tradition that is passed from one user to the other – transforming otherwise similar offerings into differentiated brand behavior.

Ritualized brand behavior permeates popular culture.

Here are some quick examples of ritualized brand behavior in daily life:

Corona. Squeezing lime into your corona has become synonymous with the brand– nobody serves Corona without lime.

Guinness: Built, not poured. You must wait several minutes for it to settle before you can drink it.

iPhone’s sliding to accept a call, close an app, launch a game.

Kit Kat: Breaking the chocolate cookie apart.

The Olympics: The opening ceremony, carrying the torch and the lighting of the flame.

Toblerone: Whacking the Chocolate Orange to separate the slices.

Popsicle: Breaking the double stick into two, single popsicles.

Tootsie Pop: How many licks does it take to get to the center?

By translating actions into brand-specific meaning, rituals can help build lifelong bonds between brands and consumers. Rituals are rights of passage, rites of enhancement, integration and renewal. Symbolism and ritual have been around for as long as humankind has populated the Earth. The very act of performing the ritual gives the consumer ownership.

Think of IKEA. The shopping experience where everything is reimagined for you in small format, brightly colored plastics and reasonably disposable modernist light-wood. A walk through IKEA is similar to a ride at Disneyland. They entertain, inspire and make you desire (through self-identification) while they carefully guide you through a thorough step-by-step brand experience –from the warehouse floor to your floor at home where you build the dresser in 46 steps (or stations of the cross).

Brand ritual is sticky.

Recent research by The Association for Psychological Science divulged that most adults continue to twist their Oreo cookies apart and either lick the filling before eating the cookies or dunk them in milk just as they did as kids. Ongoing advertising depicts parents and grandparents sharing this ritual with youngsters reinforcing the joy of eating Oreos and so the ritual is passed down from generation to generation. Oreo remains the #1 cookie brand at the age of 100. This often-cited example, which demonstrates that the power of rituals goes even further – they can increase our perception of value, too. In other words, if people perform rituals as part of their participation or consumption of your brand, then they are more likely to see it as having no alternative.

Harley Davidson management recognized that the brand had developed as a community-based phenomenon. The “brotherhood” of riders, united by a shared ethos, offered Harley the basis for a strategic repositioning as the one motorcycle manufacturer that understood bikers on their own terms. The Harley Owners Group is a riding club for Harley Davidson owners. HOG membership brings global brand fans together with special events and benefits “bound by the passion to ride”. What’s cool here is that the brand which symbolizes rugged individualism brings the “brotherhood of riders” together but allows each member to define and experience the brand in their own way, even as they observe time-honored HD rituals on the road. For motorcycle enthusiasts, there isn’t any other brand like HD; they’re part of a very special group and lifestyle choice. Yet HOG site reaches out to would-be HD fans, too, with pages that invite them to try a bike, customize and trick one out and blog about their experiences and passion for the brand with other members of the cult. There’s a dedicated magazine and an online shop to buy HD gear. So become one of us but do it your own way.

Further research by the Harvard Business Review demonstrates that the power of rituals goes even further – they can increase our perception of value, too. In other words, if employees perform rituals as part of their jobs, they are likely to find their jobs more rewarding. And if consumers use a ritual to experience your product, they are likely to enjoy it more, be willing to pay more for it and are much more likely to brag about it to others.

What are your brand’s rituals? What could you enhance about your offering by viewing the tactical aspects as cultural building blocks? To find the answers, look at ways to integrate a set of beliefs and a sense of belonging to drive unconscious reinforcement with the ultimate goal of passionate brand worship.

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

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Secret Meaning is the New Black

February 27, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

As odd as it sounds, companies that want to create their own brand could learn a lot from the kids who helped you build your first treehouse, Yale University’s Skull and Crossbones Society and the He-Man Women Haters Club from the old Our Gang comedies. And maybe even Boy and Girl Scouts and Fight Club.

Think about it for just a minute and you’ll see what I mean. All of them thrived on secrecy, shared symbols and a feeling of being instantly understood. The best part was that you didn’t have to be pretty, popular or even all that athletic to belong. All you needed to know was the secret handshake, the password or the secret code and you were instantly cool no mater what the rest of the world thought. Ironically enough, belonging to the group even helped validate your sense of being unique.

In short, you’d follow those guys and gals to the end of the earth. The only problem was, they weren’t so good at selling things because, well, that wasn’t what they were about.

But they could have been. If only they’d realized that secret meaning was the new black.

We’re not talking about the hidden meaning that some organizations or religions may imbue in otherwise ordinary, everyday things, though. Instead, we’re referring to the shared sense of meaning that people find in the products they use everyday and how to harness it.

The footwear maker KEEN is a good example. The company may have been built around the need to make sandals a safer form of sportswear, but it quickly evolved into a larger community centering on its own invention, HybridLife. The concept is meant to cover how we split our lives between working, playing and giving back. In addition to allowing the company to state its goal of finding solutions through what it makes and its business practices, it also encourages its customers/followers to take care of each other and the planet. And, by the way, the company helpfully adds, it couldn’t hurt if you threw on a pair of KEEN shoes, socks or used one of its bags while doing it.

The company has even co-opted symbols from our past and present and given them new meaning through Recess Is Back, an initiative designed to encourage its followers to play more. First, there’s the concept of recess, a callback to those halcyon days in grade school when we would take off time from our (class)work, blow off steam and play. The company’s web site also helpfully provides Recess Passes (like the Hall Passes of our school days) to e-mail to friends to encourage them to join you in your effort to have some fun in the middle of your workday. Finally, it also encourages you to print off a door hanger, something usually associated with the fun of vacations and hotel stays, to put on your office door. It turns the convention on its head by substituting “Do Not Disturb” with “Disturb All You Want I’m At Recess.”

It would have been easy for the company to just create a better mouse trap in the form of a sandal with a toe bumper, rest on its laurels and let the money roll. KEEN took it a step further and created a cult-like following by using the symbols its customers already know to tap into their passion.

Here’s why it works:

Smart Use of Symbols

We live in a world that is dominated by symbolism and we are hard-wired to tap into it. Regardless of whether those symbols are religious icons like crosses or six-pointed stars or iconic logos like an apple with a bite missing or a pair of yellow arches, there is a meaning attached to them. Those symbols and the meaning we ascribe to them are the key to the global sectors of any cult. KEEN wisely takes symbols we already know and adds a new layer of meaning to them.

Differentiation

Cult brands know they cannot appeal to everyone, so they focus instead on their community of likely customers/converts/believers. Instead of trying to appeal to all sandal wearers, KEEN focuses on those who are interested in the larger world around them and who want to do more than just buy any sandal that will get the job done. The focus on the symbols of recess like hall passes and door hangers allow them to further refine the group to folks of a certain age who remember hall passes as well as people who travel.

Providing Meaning

Once they have built a following through use of symbols customers recognize, and causes they identify with, companies like KEEN know how to provide a focus for that passion. And not just through the sale of their product. They often also harness the passion to other products and services. Companies like KEEN and others often show the causes they support and encourage their customers to get involved as a way to deepen their connection and commitment.

Increased Individuality Through Group Membership

Yes, I know it sounds strange, but there’s just something about identification with a group that makes people feel more like individuals. Undoubtedly it has something to do with finding a place where a person who previously felt he or she didn’t fit in society has suddenly found the group they identify with and the association allows them to walk taller, feel prouder and more confident than the folks who don’t belong.

There’s a fine line between being different and not different enough. For a cult brand to succeed, you want to stand out from the crowd, but not so much that you frighten your intended audience. In order to get your members to interact and spread word of mouth, you need to build in them a sense of belonging and being a part of something while still encouraging their sense of uniqueness and individuality. By sharing values, objectives or life ideals, brands can work as human identity markers.

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

Connect with David

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5 Ways Cult Brands Bridge the Gap in the Customer’s Mind

February 13, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

It’s easy to spot the brands who seized the imagination of a small group and then taught that group how to spread the word, make converts and turn their fringe offering into a mainstream way of seeing the world.

It is another thing to understand how to use the cult branding formula made famous by BJ Beuno in his landmark book, The Power of Cult Branding. This article aims to build on these theories, modernize them and offers strategies you can implement starting today.

Before we begin, I need to simplify and update the opening statement that Doug Atkins makes in his book The Culting of Brands:

Special Thanks to STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST

How to Build the Bridge Between Customers I Need and I am

First let’s understand that this article refers to I need as tactical and I am as how one identifies themselves within the context of that need.

It’s a non-linear process but this is what happens in the human mind:

I need to lose some weight,
I am not competitive.
I need to start jogging.
I need running shoes.
I am a light-hearted, non-conformist.
I am a Brooks runner.

Top running shoe brands and their achetypes. Courtesy of The Hero and The Outlaw by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson.

1. Know why your brand has stark-raving fans

Understand what needs your brand fulfills in your best customers. Know who loves your brand and why. Be specific. Let’s look at some brands that really understand who loves them and how their brands can return the favor.

REI and Nike

REI provides the knowledge and confidence to explore and discover new adventures for people of all levels, but for those whose identity is Outdoor Enthusiast, Cyclist, Climber, Hiker, or Skier, REI is Mecca. REI knows its followers are active, environmentally concerned and eager to share their passion for the outdoors with others. The co-op returns their love in ways that create stark-raving fans by providing opportunities to contribute to the brand in multiple ways: joining the co-op, taking an oath to “leave no trace”, community education and outreach programs, and even a garage sale.

Phil Knight said, “Nike’s culture and style is to be a rebel. The company was built on a genuine passion for sports and maverick disregard for convention, hard work, serious sports, and performance.” But there is more to the story. It wasn’t just gear – Bowerman and Prefontaine were the genesis of life coaching.

Nike cares about its customers’ lives not just their bodies. It doesn’t just promote sales, it promotes sports for the benefit of all. Nike coaches you to deepen your passion for whatever sport you choose, relying on education, lifestyle management and inspiration rather than selling gear. As a stark-raving fan, my experience quickly moves from “I am a runner” to “I need gear so that I can go faster, be stronger and rush into the waiting arms of the goddess of Victory”. Over the course of time it has evolved to become “I am Victory’s lover, I need to be worthy.”

2. Identify your brand’s archetype

The use of archetypes in branding has become its own phenomenon. An archetype is a universally familiar character or situation that transcends time, place, culture, gender and age. It represents an eternal truth. Books and articles abound. The reason for the popularity is simple: By using the concept of the archetypes, management can protect itself from developing a brand that is inconsistent. Archetypes make it possible to deepen the customer’s relationship with your brand because doing so fulfills an unconscious ambition that is linked to who they get to be when they are with your brand. Using archetypes in your brand development helps delineate the marketing process while helping to keep your brand’s value system firmly intact.

The most common archetype used in sports and outdoor is, no surprise, The Explorer, but comes under many names, including Seeker, Pilgrim, Wanderer, Pioneer, Individualist, Iconoclast and Adventurer.

Explorers are authentic, fulfilled, curious, individual, unique, ambitious and always true to themselves. Their goal is discovery, to experience a more authentic and fulfilling life by using their freedom to explore the world.

The Explorer is a perfect archetype if your brand helps people be free, is pioneering, is rugged and sturdy, is used on the road and in the wild, helps people express their individuality, can be purchased and consumed on the go or if you want to differentiate yourself from a more conformist brand. This might explain why it is the most common brand archetype used in the outdoor industry.

The Explorer isn’t limited to outdoor brands.

Starbucks leverages the Explorer archetype to great effect. Think green logo and Siren as sea goddess. They also emphasize choice and customization for every customer. Even the name was taken from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick – Starbucks is the name of the first mate on the Pequot. Even their packaging and retail experience reference exotic places where coffee is born. Yes born, not grown, but that, Dear Reader, is another tale altogether.

Starbucks leverages the Explorer archetype to great effect as demonstrated in their first India location.

There’s no rule that a brand can’t have multiple archetype personalities. And in a space where nearly all brands are leveraging the same archetype I encourage adding a second archetype to bring distinction and clarity in how you write, design, and communicate for your brand.

Go ahead and try it with your brand management team. Unorthodox combinations are a great starting point for brand strategy and communication.

3. Create a single brand voice

Establish a single brand voice that allows for many to chime in, transmute, interpret and re-forge your vision. Focus your efforts on ways to share that vision with like-minded people and keep your message consistent. Knowing what your business stands for (besides selling things) makes it easier for people to commit to your brand.

Lululemon is quickly becoming a Beloved Brand, with an extremely loyal following that loves not only how the brand makes them feel (healthy, comfortable, free) but also love the product which is reliable, ethical and high quality.

Lululemon‘s manifesto has quickly become a guide to life for the modern woman.

Centered in the core values of traditional yoga, their manifesto is translated for our modern world with statements such as “this is not a practice life, this is all there is.” The core of Lululemon’s DNA is Yoga. And all of the voices in their choir are singing from the same songbook.

4. Create places for your brand to build community

Use the insights gained from your customers’ attraction to the brand as inspiration for developing programs to support community. If you are just starting a brand I might suggest the best way to reach people is to look for topics and causes around which they are already gathering and align one’s brand with those topics or causes. Since most of us are already on the path, I suggest the following:

  • Sponsor events that reflect your brand’s mission.
  • Acknowledge the community. Strong communities provide a sense of identity to their members and become an integral part of their lives.
  • Support the community to reinforce the affinity customers have for your brand.

Don’t be a control freak. Communities aren’t focus groups.

Don’t waste energy trying to control the community. Instead, participate as a co-creator. View communities as a chance to stay close to your stark-raving fans. Look for ways to innovate around their needs and to help them fall deeply in love with your brand.

Nike+Fuelband is the poster child for branded community.

Nike Fuelband not only encourages customers’ active lifestyles, it encourages community engagement. It allows people to track performance through a wristband and compete with friends by climbing up the leader board. Users share their success on facebook and call out friends when they lose. Nike knows that their stark-raving fans are highly competitive individuals so they built a community to leverage this using social media to strengthen their brand.

5. Know thy enemy to deepen the brand rivalry

Differences help define group identity. Watch your competitors to see how they can be leveraged to reinforce the culture of the community. Nothing unites a group like having a common enemy. In the words of Scott Bedbury, “Everything Matters”.

Brand rivalry means competition, and competition means never-ending improvement of service, products and brand relationships. This leads to more transparency, more collaboration, better socially responsible and environmentally responsible actions and a greater incentive towards good in all industries.

Case in point: Puma and Nike have been meeting each other’s sustainability standards, and are producing more and more goods and services that are for good. Nike encourages social responsibility and sustainability through their ‘Better World’ manifesto.

Puma edged ahead recently by being named the world’s most sustainable large company. Puma is the first company in the world to put a value on the eco services it uses to produce its gear, signaling a radical change in the way business will account for its use of natural resources. Puma committed that half its collections will be manufactured according to its internal sustainability standard within four years. Clearly the rivalry is good for innovation and mankind.

What can you do you leverage your brand’s rivals to make the world better and create stark-raving fans at the same time?

Get on the path to constant and never-ending brand improvement

The path to elevating your brand to cult status is not linear, but I’m giving you tools that you can experiment with and put into practice today. My goal isn’t to claim this territory as my own, but to simplify and modernize it so that more people can believe in and be empowered by belonging to something bigger than themselves.

What are you doing to elevate your brand’s cultability?

David Lemley

David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.

Connect with David

Don‘t see what you need?

Just drop us a line and we‘ll talk

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