Why Every Great Brand Feels a Bit Like a Cult (But in a Good Way)
There's a certain thrill in watching someone light up when they talk about a brand they love. Not tolerate. Not sometimes buy. I'm talking devotion-level, ride-or-die love. Think Blunt Umbrellas during a Wellington downpour. Or Camper coffee in a reusable cup that looks suspiciously art-directed. There’s a pulse in it.
This kind of loyalty isn’t built on pricing strategies or seasonal campaigns. It’s built on rituals. Today’s smartest marketers aren’t just selling products, they’re choreographing belief systems. Case study? Ask any sneakerhead about their morning SNKRS ritual. Drop day? Alarm on. Double espresso. Palms sweating. The app fails. Again. But they’ll try next week. Because even failure is part of the initiation.
The trick is in the symbols. The unboxing experience. The in-jokes in social captions. The limited-release merch. These aren’t brand extras, they’re dogma. Patagonia doesn’t just sell jackets. It sells moral superiority stitched into recycled Gore-Tex. In a landscape drowning in content, this pattern of tiny affirmations becomes your compass. People don’t just choose these brands. They use them to narrate who they are.
So here’s the real game in 2025: don’t chase attention. Build your congregation. Preach less, pulse more. And for the love of Waitangi, let your audience feel like insiders, not leads. Because cultural currency, once minted, never inflates.
This kind of loyalty isn’t built on pricing strategies or seasonal campaigns. It’s built on rituals. Today’s smartest marketers aren’t just selling products, they’re choreographing belief systems. Case study? Ask any sneakerhead about their morning SNKRS ritual. Drop day? Alarm on. Double espresso. Palms sweating. The app fails. Again. But they’ll try next week. Because even failure is part of the initiation.
The trick is in the symbols. The unboxing experience. The in-jokes in social captions. The limited-release merch. These aren’t brand extras, they’re dogma. Patagonia doesn’t just sell jackets. It sells moral superiority stitched into recycled Gore-Tex. In a landscape drowning in content, this pattern of tiny affirmations becomes your compass. People don’t just choose these brands. They use them to narrate who they are.
So here’s the real game in 2025: don’t chase attention. Build your congregation. Preach less, pulse more. And for the love of Waitangi, let your audience feel like insiders, not leads. Because cultural currency, once minted, never inflates.