Category: Cult Branding

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Want an Unforgettable Brand? Build a Strong Narrative

February 7, 2014  |  an article by David Lemley

“Storytellers have as profound a purpose as any who are charged to guide and transform human lives.”—Nancy Mellon, author

Nothing engages human beings like a good narrative. Nothing has formed distinct cultures and bound them together since ancient times like storytelling. Narrative has great power. It’s engaging if it’s relevant to an audience. When a story makes a deep impression, it becomes memorable. A strong narrative moves people because it elicits emotion. When they adopt it, it becomes part of the fabric of who they are.

The kind of narrative I’m referring to isn’t about developing an interesting plot for a novel. I’m talking about brand building. A brand narrative begins by sharing the story behind the brand—the unique vision and aspirations of its founder(s) that employees, stakeholders and consumers can relate to and with which they can identify. It’s a powerful foundation for any brand but it must be shared and expanded upon to create a devoted following.

A story alone doesn’t cut it. No brand that enjoys a cult following has succeeded without have a powerful story that is not only shared but delivered across every channel, every customer touch point and every experience, or it doesn’t ring true. We talk about authenticity and honesty all of the time for good reason. A story is only as meaningful to brand fans as every experience that they have when they engage with the brand.

Coming back to touch points: I’m referring to in-store or on-site interactions with retailers or service providers; websites, social and traditional media as well as mobile; customer service call centers—every channel has to be a conduit for the delivery of the story to surprise, delight and WOW consumers. Narrative-building brands do not invade consumers’ privacy or their spaces; they compel their audience to interact with them because they offer so much richness and meaning.

Here’s the other thing. A meaningful story is only a starting point for a narrative that continues. It doesn’t get stagnant. It grows as new chapters are written; the beauty of the story is that brand fans’ own stories become part of the narrative. Information is shared to enrich the lives of the brand’s adherents, creating core value and that value is prized because it is not found in any other brand. And that, my friends, is how brand fans form a cult. The brand belongs to them and they belong to the brand. The cult becomes part of a microcosm; a special social stratum of believers who can’t conceive of living without their brand because it has become a lifestyle choice.

True cult brands are focused on helping their followers to improve their lives. Their stories are never focused on selling products and services; they’re focused on delivering insights and information that deliver value, as I said. That value might encompass ways in which to add convenience and efficiencies for time-strapped consumers. It might showcase new technologies that meet the needs of the brand’s fans. Or it might share ideas leading to better health and nutritional choices. And it should anticipate what their cult will want even before they do.

As the brand experience deepens, the relationship between the fan and the brand does, too. Brand culture has to really merge with its fan base in order to leverage the full power of the narrative. Understanding the preferences and deep-seated human needs and emotions of its fans, helps brand builders to keep their brands relevant as they advance their narratives.

To prove my point, think of the brands with huge cult followings and recall their stories: Whole Foods, Zara, Lululemon, Apple, REI, Zappos, Van’s, Harley Davidson, Starbuck’s, Trader Joe’s—to name a few. Note how these brands have heritage signifying that they’ve remained true to their stories for some time. Proof that their narratives are constantly being written to remain relevant to their current followers as they consistently attract and engage new followers.

Finally, the brands with the most compelling narratives go one better. They strive to make a difference by being responsible corporate citizens. They practice sustainability and/or they fully integrate into their communities by giving away a share of their profits to worthwhile organizations that help people. They step up when their communities need help. They feed and nurture in tangible and not-so-tangible ways. Brand fans feel good about supporting them because they add so much meaning to their personal lives and do so much to enhance the communities in which they live. No matter how big these brands become, they still feel personal and exemplify a grassroots spirit.

In order to develop a brand strategy focused on leveraging the power of narrative, the following considerations must be met:

– Start with the unique story that brought the brand into being.
– What is the vision, the purpose of the brand? How does that bring meaning to a specific group of consumers?
– How can the story focus on its consumer target with its content: informing, inspiring and elevating their lives?
– How can the story’s new chapters add its fans’ own stories for richness, relevance and to become increasingly personal?
– How can the brand story remain relevant by tapping into its cult’s most ardent desires, needs and anticipate those desires and needs to continue to create “belonging” for them?
– How can the growing brand remain rooted in its narrative and its values, so that it feels personal and “small” no matter how large the company becomes?
– How can the brand do well by doing good? How can it become intertwined in the community?

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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Why Purpose Matters

February 2, 2014  |  an article by David Lemley

The average lifespan for a male in the United States is now about 80 years; things are even better if you are female and/or you live in Japan, but much worse if you live in Botswana or Angola. I tell you this because long before people die, they run out of steam.

Every now and then you meet a 75-year-old with a zest for life and a passion for others, but more often you meet folks tired by the drudgery of jobs that bored them, spouses that didn’t understand them, and kids who took them for granted.

Sorry — my intention is not to depress you. Instead, I simply want to draw a contrast between the average state of affairs and what most of us crave most of all: to have a purpose that matters.

Take a 75-year-old with weak knees and creaking joints, surround him or her with grateful and smiling faces, and you have a person who is thrilled to be alive.

Take a 23-year-old who last year others viewed as spoiled, entitled, and useless in the workplace. Add a purpose, and – voila! – you have a dynamo who works 24/7 with joy in her heart.

Here’s the rub: purpose has to have true meaning to the people involved. It can’t just be “let’s crush our sales goal” or “let’s make the boss look really good.” Your agenda, disguised as purpose, is still your agenda. It won’t fool anyone.

In the context I intend it, purpose implies a social good. It has to be larger than you or I. It has to rise above the income statement of your business. It must evoke fundamental human needs, such as longing and belonging. Think about building a series of schools, eradicating a deadly disease, or turning a burnt-out neighborhood into a true community.

Purpose can transform a generic brand into an AMAZING brand. It can motivate, inspire and invigorate your team. It can attract people from all around the world to stand behind your efforts.

Whole Foods carries the Method line of cleaning products, and praises its “vibrant formulas, irresistible fragrances and famously sleek and beautiful packaging.” Recently the company decided to recycle plastic collected from the beaches of Hawaii, and use it in its packaging.

“We realize that only a small amount of plastic will be taken out of the ocean to make these bottles,” explained Method co-founder Adam Lowry. “But we can have a big impact if we change people’s minds about their role in protecting our oceans.”

Most people don’t realize that there is now so much plastic debris in our oceans that the beaches of Hawaii are littered with the stuff. In this context, raising awareness is a meaningful purpose, since it drives home the sobering reality that even thousands of miles at sea, our trash is turning pristine nature into pitiful piles of litter.

Add purpose, and the same couple that wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping in anything less than a four star hotel will have the best week of their lives in sleeping bags on a crude wooden floor. If you don’t believe me, ask your friends about the events in their lives that have mattered most to them. Don’t settle for their first answers; dig deeper, and watch their eyes carefully. Human beings crave meaning.

Meaning matters. In fact, it is a potent brand strategy. If you recognize this, you can banish customer apathy. You can inject passion and energy into every corner of your firm’s relationships with not only its customers but also its employees.

And that is why purpose matters.

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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Ethos: The Value of Values in Brand Building

June 23, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

Brands, just like people, have values –principles they stand for and hold near and dear to their heart.

These principles form the reason brands exist. Brand values influence two important business assets – relationships and reputation. Relationships are built on trust and reputation is built on delivering on your promise.

In our over-crowded, me-too marketplace, points of difference that are function and feature based are no longer sustainable. Consumers today are tuning out marketing and tuning in to those brands that represent shared values.

Clifford Geetz, the Godfather of Cultural Anthropology… put it something like this… Ethos and worldview describe how cultures create a seamless, unified system. The ethos (an understanding of how we should act in the world) is supported by the worldview (a picture of how the world really is), and vice versa. In a sense, ethos and worldview are what differentiate one culture from another. And it is the culture that traditionally gives individuals their definition of self—who they are, what they believe, and how they should act.

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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Get Leverage: Know Your Brand Archetype

June 18, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

Archetypal branding works because it appeals to all people. We all share a deep need to feel stability, belonging, discovery and achievement. In today’s world, many brands have taken on the role of building blocks we use to fabricate of our sense of self. For most of us, our self-identity is textured with personal and archetypal mythos.

The power of identifying a brand with one of these timeless stories is that the story already exists deep within our subconscious — it does not need to be created. The task for the brand is to simply tell the story through the lens of archetypes.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung identified seven of key archetypes, but said there were many more to be discovered. In their book, The Hero and the Outlaw, Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson expanded this thinking to identify twelve specific archetypes and showed how these could be used to guide brand strategy.

The athlete, the liberator, the rescuer, the warrior.

These are the universal retellings of what Jung called the Hero. The secret to the Hero archetype is that all heroes have something in common: vulnerability. Think of The Man of Steel and kryptonite, or the biblical tale of Sampson and Delilah, his lust and his hair.

The reason archetypal storytelling works so well is that throughout history all cultures have told the tale of the hero. Heroes are typically orphans called to a quest. Hero myths closely follow a recognizable story arc, regardless of the culture telling the story. In his Book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell described this as “the phenomenon of the universal hero masked in local details”.

Hero stories have existed through the ages because they deliver on very important emotional needs we all share. The hero story helps us understand our mortality and speaks to our desire to achieve great things. Such timeless stories bring understanding and meaning to our lives.

Archetypal brand-building starts with why.

All strong brands share a set of common elements: A Foundation story, Brand Pillars, a Defined Brand Personality and, most importantly, a Brand Promise.

Addressing these elements through the lens of your brand’s archetype helps everyone deepen our answers to why our brand exists and why our employees and fans should care.

Look for ways your archetypal story might show up to the world:

How would your business change if your products and services were considered vehicles the company creates in order to keep its brand promise? The strongest organizations know how to weave a strong story into their delivery.

Think of it as symbolic shorthand for your brand beyond your logo. Iconography might include: smell, sounds taste, feel or any other indirect signal that tells a subtle and suggestive story. Iconography can be almost anything, think of the sounds your computer makes when its boots up. Author Martin Lindstrom calls this philosophy “Smash Your Brand.

Reality exists in language. Movements grow, ideas take form and empires are overthrown all because of language. Whenever we can get a group of people to agree on an idea and share it, we have the power to change the world. This could be a tagline like “Talk to Chuck”, or a communication hook like the Absolut ads campaign that hasn’t changed in 25 years.

Think about how you order coffee at your local Starbucks. First you cue up, peruse the pastry case, enjoy the artwork and then when it’s finally your turn you blurt out something like, “Quad Venti Skinny with Whip Iced Caramel Macchiato”. Look for ways to make the purchase, consumption, sharing and re-use of your offerings more intimate, more interactive, more human.

Archetypes give shape to your brand’s intangibles.

People struggle to measure the intangibles of the brand. I think this list, while not exhaustive, puts structure to the conversation and helps us see of where and how archetypal storytelling both internally and externally become powertools.

Create a vision so crystal clear of your future that everyone in your organization sees it so compellingly that your employees can scat with it.

Attract and retain the brightest, passionate peeps in your planet. Today we know that people are looking for more than just a paycheck from their career. They want to belong to something bigger. Give it to them and let them help you tell the story.

Know what business you are in, what business you should be in and which business you should get out of to ensure long term brand viability. This self-awareness becomes even more valuable when success comes in like the tide. It helps us to avoid convoluted brand architecture that can get downright unruly when mergers and acquisitions are involved.

Using archetypes to tell a brand centered story works because consumers often cannot explain their rational decisions for the emotional choices they make with purchases and the brands they favor.

Stop competing on price. Brands that consistently tell one archetypal story perform better financially. Show your customers what makes your brand different and better. Hint it’s not the features and benefits. It’s whom your loyalists get to be when they are with you.

Archetypes help brands climb out from the shadow of powerful and well-funded competitors.

It’s always challenging for a brand with less advertising dollars, fewer products and less social clout to win at the me-too game. I have seen many brands struggle for years with this.

Brooks, Tully’s, and Eddie Bauer all come to mind because they live in my backyard.

Brooks used The Jester archetype to differentiate themselves from all the big brands at specialty running, where due to size and budget, they had no choice but to behave like a cult brand. This worked really well for a long time, but as Warren buffet said in June 2013, the secret to the stellar rise of Brooks came by focusing deeply and narrowly on the needs of runners. Now do you think they would have gotten the same traction trying to out-hero Nike, Reebok and Adidas?

Tully’s enjoyed success when they realized that they could only claim territory abandoned by Starbucks: Hand crafted Coffee from the Pacific Northwest. Tully’s as The Citizen. Tully’s got clarity and power to change their reason for being from a series of lofty and un-actionable goals (which were already being met by the likes of Starbucks and Pete’s) and boiled to down to “helping people have a better day”.

And then there is Eddie Bauer. I was quite excited to see that First Ascent jackets are private label of Eddie Bauer. It warms my heart to see Eddie Bauer getting attention and breaking the bonds of what can only be described as the dark years of Spiegel. My question for Eddie Bauer is this:  what makes you different from North Face, Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, Marmot and the plethora of premium extreme mountain top focused Explorer archetype brands currently enjoying preference?

Perhaps Eddie Bauer could benefit from carefully linking their original explorer mentality with another archetype, just not one that would make them feel like a housewares brand. I have said before, if your brand sees itself as The Explorer and the competitive landscape is such that you are getting beaten regularly by other Explorers, you may need to look for another story to tell.

Our brains create brand shorthand from archetypes.

Archetypal brands rely on the brain’s preference for organizing things to remember in boxes. It helps that these archetype (boxes) have been around for centuries, that they are found throughout the world, and that they reflect some fundamental human emotional needs. Simply said, archetypes are very strong placeholders. The story of the hero, the role of the mentor and caregiver are so engrained in our culture and the stories we hear that they create a familiar pattern.
Brands that tap into archetypes’ powerful combination of being strong placeholders organized in a familiar pattern relieve consumers of the need to remember lots of information about their products.

Strong iconic brands evoke a timeless archetypal story. This story connects them emotionally with their fans. Brands keep the story relevant by retelling it over and over again in fresh, contemporary ways. And they pay attention to the little details because the little things a brand does often comes under greater scrutiny than the big things a brand says. Strong brands are fanatical about the consistency with which they tell the story because they know that it is easy for the spell of the brand story to be broken if the details do not resonate with what a loyal customer believes to be true about the brand and has come to know and trust.

When using archetypes, the role of the brand marketer is to evoke the story through cultural cues and the emotions that consumers seek to derive from the brand. The task of an established brand is to discover and clarify its core archetypal story. The task of new or undefined brands is to identify an archetypal story and stick with it.

Do you know your Brand’s archetype?

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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Elevate Your Brand Through the Strong Use of Symbolism

June 13, 2013  |  an article by David Lemley

What do lululemon, Starbucks Coffee, and Harley Davidson have in common with the Catholic church?

Watch this short excerpt from our webcast, The Cult Brand Value Equation, to discover how these iconic brands have all leveraged the power of symbolism to create a venue where we are not only aware of their mission but invite them into our daily lives.

If you would like to watch the entire presentation, sign up here to view it now.

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 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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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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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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