Having implemented steps towards achieving brand loyalty through CSR, implementing customer feedback into your operations, 360 customer service, incentives and utilising influencers, your next ambition should be achieving the highest tier of brand loyalty – cult loyalty.
You may have heard the term ‘cult brands’ before, associated with names such as Apple and video gaming series Call of Duty, whose days-long queues of fans camping to receive the latest product is testimony to their following. The term ‘cult loyalty’ however is used less and is under-rated given its position as a target for companies to aspire towards. As the points below highlight, achieving cult loyalty is to go above and beyond in your unquestioned determination to achieve customer obsession.
Your brand above any other
Something many of us are ‘guilty’ (or perhaps proud) of is sticking to that same brand for our chosen products and services. Whether that means only owning Apple MacBooks over HP laptops, always upgrading Playstations rather than switching to the new Xbox or even drinking Coke over Pepsi, these habits signify our unconditional trust and loyalty towards the brand itself over individual products. This is a clear indicator of life-long, cult-like loyalty that can be hard to break or for the brand’s rivals to even reason with.
Achieving this may require some tongue-in-cheek divide and conquering of the consumer market through your advertising campaigns.
Take the Pepsi Challenge as an example. These commercials of people taking blind taste tests of Pepsi vs Coke was a blatant dig at Coca-Cola, giving it a run for its money and mocking the brand to a point that consumers would see Pepsi as the superior brand. Taking a stance, creating polarity (of us vs them) and declaring war in a battle of the brands is the fearless way to gain respect and cult loyalty.
Not just a product, but a way of life
Cult loyalty means having your customers living and breathing your brand in their daily lives. Fitness brands have often been the most successful in making their products part of daily life for consumers. In their stated vision, lulumon sets out to “create more than a place where people could get gear to sweat in” but to be a hub for people “to learn and discuss the physical aspects of healthy living, mindfulness and living a life of possibility”. Not only do Lululemon provide premium-range fitness clothing, but yoga classes, festivals, retreats and hygiene products. Making your brand cover various aspects of your customer’s life makes them ever-more loyal towards your services to provide them the lifestyle they desire.
Harley Davidson is another great example of a brand becoming a lifestyle with a cult-like following, so much so that a book titled ‘Harley Davidson – A Way of Life’ was recently published. As marketing and branding collective BatesMerton state – “if you ride a Harley, you are Harley to the core – representing the brand and its meaning in all aspects of your life”. The fact that the brand has products covering almost every form of clothing or decoration possible means that its followers form their own identity based on the brand, inseparable from the prime product (their motorbikes) they use when signifying that identity.
For one Harley rider, as a cult-like follower “I personally represent what Harley had to offer many moons ago and use it as a tool to see what this great country has to offer and to see”, whilst for another, its collective memory and significance in American history is the driver behind his loyalty – “Our fathers and grandfathers rode Harleys before wars and after wars… It’s a nostalgic idea that I want to live on.”
Creating a community through a common identity
A way of life is often the catalyst in creating a community to share that brand-influenced following with. To create cult loyalty in your brand, you need to create a cult in itself. Religious elements aside, the term cult usually refers to a social group defined by a common interest in a particular object or goal. Cults and sub-cultures are inseparable from brands and products who create the very products they showcase their identity with.
Fortnite is a great example of how a brand has created a cult-like following and community. The battle-royale style video game has amassed a cult-like following among a teenage audience who express their devotion through merchandise, fan accounts on social media, subscribing to and sharing YouTube channels about Fornite and even re-creating dance moves from the game! It could be said that the very essence of playing Fortnite – as an interactive, online game engaging 100 players at once – makes it an inherently communal brand (even though that communal playing involves ‘killing off’ your fellow Fortnite-rs!).
By making Fortnite more than just a game but a cult-like community ready to share their loyalty for the game with each other, Epic Games have innovated one of the most iconic video games of the 2010s.
Check our blog next week to find out more methods of creating cult loyalty for your brand. In the meantime, browse our partners opportunity portal, which provides access to a plethora of young entrepreneurs, ready to pivot your company towards cult loyalty.
