Obtaining cult brand status: How to build and nurture

an avid base of brand affinity

David Ward
Source: ANA Magazine, July 2017
Downloaded from WARC

This article instructs how to gain cult appeal by attracting passionate consumers and encouraging
them to spread the word.

It's the consumer that makes the cult brand, not the marketer.
The best role marketers can play is figuring out ways to expand a cult brand's appeal to a wider
audience.
In order to maintain a strong presence, marketers need to use a consistent and well-defined brand
voice.
Engaging in a meaningful way around issues that really matter to your core consumers creates an
intense following that ad dollars can't buy.

The fondest wish of many marketers is to see the brand they represent somehow achieve cult status, complete
with passionate followers that sing the brand's praises and go out of their way to convince others to buy in.
Harley-Davidson, Apple, and Starbucks are among the fortunate few that have managed to achieve and
maintain that status even as their core businesses evolved and grew. But as tempting as it is to single out a
clever tag line, logo, or campaign as the reason for a brand instantly reaching cult levels of adoration, the reality
is that it's the consumer that makes the cult brand, not the marketer.

"I really believe you can't sit in a corporate conference room and say, 'Hey I want to go make a cult brand,'" says
Marisa Thalberg, CMO at Taco Bell, which in the past few years managed to achieve indie-cult status —
especially among millennials — while still retaining mass market awareness. "It's not 'Do these three things and
then you'll have a cult.' It has to be something that happens organically, but marketers play a role in building a
proposition and a connection and appreciation for the brand. The consumer then has to feel the brand gets
them."

Thalberg cites as an example a 35-year-old Army veteran who upon waking from a multiweek coma in 2016
immediately asked for Taco Bell. "We couldn't have made that up, but we also don't exploit it," she says. "We
just made sure we gave him Taco Bell. People are very savvy today, and part of that savviness means they
understand when they're marketed to. They can smell inauthenticity from far away."
A number of experts interviewed for this story agree with Thalberg: that authenticity is a core part of a cult brand,
and that you can make your brand a cult sensation in the same way you can make your content go viral, which
is to say you can't. But experts point to a number of things marketers can do to position their brand for cult
status, and nurture it once it gets there.

Stay True to Your Cult Appeal

Marketers fortunate enough to work on a cult brand need to first understand the gut feeling consumers have
about the product or service, and then figure out ways to amplify that feeling to a broader audience — while also
resisting the temptation to rest on the brand's laurels.

"There is that perception that if your product is that great, or your service is outstanding, you can connect your
brand to people quickly and you don't have to advertise," says Britton Upham, general manager at McGarrah
Jessee, an Austin, Texas–based brand development and integrated marketing agency.

McGarrah Jessee works with several brands with cult followings, including cooler maker YETI, Costa Del Mar
sunglasses, and Texas-based Whataburger, whose acolytes have been known to drive hundreds of miles to eat
at one of its locations.

Upham suggests the best role marketers can play is figuring out ways to expand a cult brand's appeal to a wider
audience. "One tactic that's really effective with cult brands is to determine who your customer is and then model
around that psychologically and demographically," he says. "The psychology profile is becoming very useful with
look-alike targeting, finding consumers that might be hiding in different places, but actually look a lot like your
existing customers."

One cult brand well versed in expanding to a wider audience is Shake Shack, which has maintained its cult
appeal through a decade of steady growth. "Shake Shack, at its core, has always been about community and
bringing people together, and over the past several years we have grown organically and naturally from our
hometown of New York and across the country to great cities like Chicago, Austin, and L.A., and around the
world to some incredible places like Tokyo and Seoul," explains Edwin Bragg, VP of marketing and
communications at the fast casual restaurant chain.

The Importance of a Strong Brand Voice

In order to maintain a strong presence, marketers need to use a consistent and well-defined brand voice.

Shake Shack initially focused on PR to amplify its origin story of starting as an art project raising money for a
New York City park. Now it relies on multiple channels to broaden its cult appeal, including in-restaurant events,
select outdoor advertising, and plenty of digital media with an emphasis on social media.

"Shake Shack continues to have outsized engagement on every single social channel, from Facebook to
Instagram Stories, and it's still largely organic," Bragg says. "On Instagram, this plays out in how much our fans
naturally share content about Shake Shack, because it's a brand that they're proud to be aligned with based on
what we stand for."
Expand on Your Purpose
Shake Shack combines its broad outreach with local advocacy through partnerships with more than 30 charities
across the U.S. and around the world. "These are smaller, hyper-local charities from neighborhood associations
and dog-adoption charities to children's hospitals and food banks," Bragg says. "From a marketing perspective,
we share these stories of how we give back and weave that into our digital and social content, resulting in
higher engagement with Shake Shack guests."

Costa Del Mar is another good example of a brand that's grown beyond its initial core supporters into cult status
while still maintaining its core following. Founded in Florida to provide high-quality sunglasses for fishermen,
Costa has not only successfully expanded geographically, but in 2016 was also among the honorees at The
Gathering, the annual event celebrating cult brands.

This year Costa teamed up with OCEARCH, the global nonprofit dedicated to researching great white sharks
and other large ocean predators, on "Don't Fear the Fin," an awareness campaign featuring three shark attack
victims speaking on the importance of sharks to the salt-water ecosystem.

"Brand activism isn't for the faint of heart — engaging in a meaningful way around issues that really matter to
your core consumers creates an intense following that ad dollars simply can't buy," says Costa Del Mar CEO
Holly Rush. "While we will always be anchored in fishing, we also recognize there are new communities to
explore for the brand. Because of Costa's authenticity, our story, and what we stand for, our consumer base is
much broader today than just fishing — young millennials who share a love of exploration, of life on or near the
water, and who care about brands and companies that are not just making great products but are doing good in
the world around them."

Deliver on Value, Not Price

Most cult brands are fortunate or smart enough to market on things other than price. YETI, for example, has
seen cooler sales explode from $5 million in 2009 to more than $470 million in recent years, despite a price tag
far, far higher than competitors.

Benefitting from a great origin story — it was founded by two entrepreneurial brothers, Ryan and Roy Seiders,
whose love of hunting and fishing led them to create a cooler so durable it could withstand the rigors of their
adventures on the water and in the wilderness — YETI has become so ingrained in outdoor leisure culture that
Chris Janson mentions the brand in his 2015 country music hit, "Buy Me a Boat."

YETI Marketing Director Bill Neff says the company consciously avoids the hard sell, instead preferring to tell
stories, like those of well-known fisherman and other brand ambassadors in a series of short films and other
content.

"We use marketing to engage customers on a more emotional level," Neff says. "Our films, for example, aren't a
direct vehicle for product marketing, but they legitimize the brand as a leader in the outdoor space. When people
see something that touches a nerve, it stokes a yearning for those days spent outdoors and makes them feel a
kinship with the brand."
Join Your Own Cult
The big challenge many cult brands face as they grow is retaining the passion of those initial followers. "Don't try
to be all things to all people," advises Emily Heyward, co-founder and partner at Brooklyn-based branding
agency Red Antler. "If you can get a core group of people to fall madly in love with you, the rest will follow.
Engaging with your brand says something about them as people, and your brand identity becomes tied up with
their identity."

Mike Doherty, president of Seattle-based Cole & Weber, suggests marketers also need to be humble enough to
realize that achieving initial cult brand status often happens almost on its own, with the agency and brand
manager going along for the ride.

"The pivotal question is how you choose to use that moment: whether to milk it or nurture it," he says. "Given the
short tenures of CMOs, it's often tempting to milk it, and make the most of a short-lived exploitation of the energy
that the fans put into it. But it's possible to get both short- and long-term rewards, if you're willing to join the cult
instead of exploiting it."

Doherty, whose agency has worked with regional and national beers like Rainier and PBR that have cult
followings, adds, "Excavate the original truths and as many relics and clues as you can find. No cult member
should be a bigger geek than you on its mythology, archeology, and best-and-worst-of-times."

Believing that the true power of cult brands comes not from their marketing, but from their followers, Doherty
advises, "Put a sign up on the wall, reminding you that it's their brand, not yours — and they can take it away
from you if you don't treat it right, shareholders be damned."

That Distinctive Cult Look

Can a compelling product or service make a cult brand logo seem exciting, or is it the other way around? That
may be a question only a design consultant can answer, but, regardless, cult brands are often known for their
look and other visual assets.

"Some brands can identify with a unique set of brand elements — such as logo, packaging, colors, fonts —
which reinforce their identity," explains Vanitha Swaminathan, Thomas Marshall professor of marketing and
director for the Center for Branding at the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business. "For a
long time, Apple has maintained its logo but has updated the colors to make it modern. Google did try to change
its logo but there was some pushback from consumers. Still, Google's logo continues to maintain its simplicity
and appeal, both of which are essential to the brand itself."

Marisa Thalberg, CMO at Taco Bell, says the brand's emergence as a cult brand was boosted, at least in part,
by a late 2016 logo change. The new logo, developed by creative consultancy Lippincott along with Taco Bell's
internal design group, both simplified the imagery and eliminated some of the gaudier colors, while maintaining
the brand's iconic bell image. "We can play with that and that in turn has created all these new merchandise
opportunities," she says. "It's part of the cool factor of the brand and part of the playfulness."

Emily Heyward, co-founder and partner at Brooklyn-based branding agency Red Antler, agrees that design and
imagery are important, but adds, "Creating a distinctive look always starts with strategy — otherwise you're just
making random aesthetic choices that may look cool, but won't connect with people and have that longevity.
From there, the creative absolutely can and should evolve, but it should always stay rooted in the brand
positioning and the core idea that the brand is trying to own."

About the author

David Ward
Journalist

David Ward is a journalist specializing in business, marketing, and tech-themed stories.

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