How Culture Brands Work
By FerebeeLane
Proposing a Framework of Key Factors and Functions
In the 1960s, Al Ries and Jack Trout introduced a concept to describe a poorly articulated dynamic in marketing and advertising: positioning. Now one of the industry’s most adhered-to principles, positioning prompts us to stake a specific claim to a unique place, or position, in the mind of particular consumers. Critical in a marketplace overrun with undifferentiated commodities and unwanted advertising, positioning leads to focus for organizations and to clarity for their internal and external audiences. It’s how brands find a valuable niche for their products and services, and how many pursue what some consider niche marketing’s highest state: cult brands. One less understood aspect of positioning for specific segments and angling for cult brand status is the world of culture brands.
Few have examined—or perhaps even recognized—this different kind of niche brand. Culture brands are more focused than traditional commodities, but not as constrained as typical niche or cult brands. Their positioning is still distinct, but their segments and audiences aren’t as narrow. Whereas cult brands are smaller by nature and often aligned to an existing niche, culture brands can be scaled, effectively defining and creating their own niche as they grow. Both connect with audiences in fundamentally personal ways, but unlike cult brands, the power of a culture brand isn’t fueled by limiting its growth, evolution or audience.
For the last decade, our agency has been harnessing that power for brands like Le Creuset, Blackberry Farm, Miele and BMW. Our Culture Brand Framework is the result of years of interactions with organizations and engagement with their audiences. While most of our clients are niche brands of some kind, and several may be considered bona fide cult brands, all have been structured and supported in ways that invite personal connection and scale. For us, positioning is invaluable as a discipline that focuses a brand, but that focus doesn’t have to hinder growth. We’ve demonstrated this repeatedly with clients across categories and industries. By carefully implementing and attending to three fundamental factors—story, sensibility and significance—brands and organizations that might otherwise have been niched into charming but limited specialization have scaled and enjoyed remarkable success. First, a clear, compelling and authentic story must be established. Then a distinct aesthetic and perspective, a variety of elements we refer to as a brand’s sensibility, are developed. Finally, links that lead to genuine significance are identified and cultivated in a compelling way. This ensures products and services aren’t just marketed to a brand’s key internal and external audiences, they actually matter to them.
The convergence of these three critical factors results in the culture at the heart of culture brands. Each intersection also generates the functional value for consumers that make culture brands so extraordinary: symbol to self, signal to others and shared value to a like-minded group. Through its story and sensibility, the brand serves as a symbol to self, it validates personal interests symbolically for those who align with it. Culture brands also function as a signal to others, projecting or communicating specific themes and ideas by way of the brand’s sensibility and significance. Finally, they generate a form of cultural currency, shared value to a community of committed devotees who are invested in the brand’s meaning and story. This framework—which will be explored in more depth in future articles—is offered as a practical method for understanding and cultivating the key factors and functions at work in some of the most meaningful brand relationships in the modern marketplace. ///