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A cult brand is a symbol-intensive brand usually tied to a single customer segment or a specific product category. Cult brands deliver a sense of belonging between people who share the same culture and passions. Harley-Davidson is a typical example of cult brand because they effectively express open roads culture, free spirit mythology, and connotations of Hells Angels’ machismo. These ideas amass a following of the company's brand.
Other cult brands, often characterized by exclusive owners clubs and intensive social activities, are Ferrari, Ducati, Nautor Swan, Fender, Cohiba, and Breguet.[2] [1]
This section may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(May 2020) |
Cult Brands fall into the category of benign cults which can be defined as a following where members are truly attached or intensely devoted to the product/service the brand provides. Benign Cults are not destructive and are welcoming of new members. In Benign Cults, human desires are fulfilled in an unharmful way. [2] [ unreliable source? ] [3] [ unreliable source? ]
A brand can be defined as a cult brand if the following factors are present: [3]
There are considered to be three stages of followers within a brand: [4]
The following emerged as cult brands because the brands sell lifestyles, whilst focusing a great deal on their customers.
Harley-Davidson sells more than just motorcycles, it sells a passion and a lifestyle. The emergence of the Harley's Ownership Group or HOG was an opportunity for motorcycle enthusiasts to share their experiences and passion, [5] which turned them into a lifestyle brand. This cult brand is a textbook example of guerrilla marketing. Harley-Davidson benefited from word-of-mouth advertising and relied on low-cost dealership promotions.
Vans is known for providing true skate culture. It markets itself as more than a company but a lifestyle. Very early on, Vans became actively involved in skate culture by hosting skateboarding days and sponsoring the Warped tour. In 2014, Vans opened a free-access skate complex in Huntington Beach. [5]
Lululemon is known for being far more than a simple spandex store. Whilst other brands built stores, Lululemon created a 'hub for healthy living'. [5] The company regularly runs yoga classes. Selling the healthy lifestyle made high priced $98 yoga pants merchantable.
Apple has a strong corporate culture of listening and receiving feedback, especially from the consumer's perspective. Apple recognizes its customer's appreciation for innovation and the aesthetics of things. Apple's participation in the annual Macworld Expo included workshops where the latest Apple products were discussed [6] in an open environment allowing Apple to create innovative products that customers greatly desired. For instance, the introduction of the iPod was created in ways that intertwined with human lifestyles and day-to-day activities. Apple slogans such as “Think different” pinpointed human desires to be different and to be part of a society. The slogan was designed to be a true manifestation of individual identity. [7]
Cult brands do not confine to products or services provided by businesses. Cult brands may include influential people, for instance, celebrities. The Oprah Winfrey Show rapidly flourished into a cult brand in 1986. Oprah's topic of discussion and debate were of great interest to her audience, while her advice and recommendations were found highly influential by the audience. [3] Oprah's book recommendations helped many novels become best sellers. Her endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 was considered influential by many. [8]
Marketing is the act of satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of business management and commerce.
Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organisations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. Consumer behaviour consists of how the consumer's emotions, attitudes, and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, marketing, and economics.
In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, persuasively. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.
In marketing and consumer behaviour, brand loyalty describes a consumer's persistent positive feelings towards a familiar brand and their dedication to purchasing the brand's products and/or services repeatedly regardless of deficiencies, a competitor's actions, or changes in the market environment. It can also be demonstrated with other behaviors such as positive word-of-mouth advocacy. Corporate brand loyalty is where an individual buys products from the same manufacturer repeatedly and without wavering, rather than from other suppliers. Loyalty implies dedication and should not be confused with habit, its less-than-emotional engagement and commitment. Businesses whose financial and ethical values rest in large part on their brand loyalty are said to use the loyalty business model.
The Harley Owners Group (HOG) is a sponsored community marketing club, operated by Harley-Davidson for enthusiasts of that brand's motorcycles. The HOG is "the grandaddy of all community-building efforts," serving to promote not just a consumer product, but a lifestyle. The HOG has also served to open new revenue streams for the company, with the production of tie-in merchandise offered to club members, numbering over one million strong, making it the largest factory-sponsored riding club in the world. The Harley-Davidson community was the prototype for the ethnographic term subculture of consumption, defined as "a distinctive subgroup of society that self-selects on the basis of a shared commitment to a particular product class, brand, or consumption activity."
A lifestyle brand is a brand that attempts to embody the values, aspirations, interests, attitudes, or opinions of a group or a culture for marketing purposes. Lifestyle brands seek to inspire, guide, and motivate people, with the goal of making their products contribute to the definition of the consumer's way of life. As such, they are closely associated with the advertising and other promotions used to gain mind share in their target market. They often operate from an ideology, hoping to attract a relatively high number of people and ultimately become a recognised social phenomenon.
Lululemon Athletica inc., commonly known as lululemon, is a Canadian-American multinational premium athletic apparel retailer headquartered in British Columbia and incorporated in Delaware, United States. It was founded in 1998 as a retailer of yoga pants and other yoga wear, and has expanded to also sell athletic wear, lifestyle apparel, accessories, and personal care products. The company has 711 stores and also sells online.
The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.
A brand community is a concept in marketing and consumer research which postulates that human beings form communities on the basis of attachment to a brand or marque. A brand community refers to structured social relationships in which participants share admiration and connection of a brand that they experience through shared rituals, traditions and a sense of responsibility towards other members. The term often refers to the intersection between brand, individual identity and culture.
Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word-of-mouth marketing in which companies develop customers who believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it. The customers become voluntary advocates, actively spreading the word on behalf of the company.
Loyalty marketing is a marketing strategy in which a company focuses on growing and retaining existing customers through incentives. Branding, product marketing, and loyalty marketing all form part of the customer proposition – the subjective assessment by the customer of whether to purchase a brand or not based on the integrated combination of the value they receive from each of these marketing disciplines.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to marketing:
A touchpoint can be defined as any way consumers can interact with a business organization, whether person-to-person, through a website, an app or any form of communication. When consumers connect with these touchpoints they can consider their perceptions of the business and form an opinion.
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders. Brand names are sometimes distinguished from generic or store brands.
The purchase funnel, or purchasing funnel, is a consumer-focused marketing model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey toward the purchase of a good or service.
Emotional branding is a term used within marketing communication that refers to the practice of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer's emotional state, needs and aspirations. Emotional branding is successful when it triggers an emotional response in the consumer, that is, a desire for the advertised brand that cannot fully be rationalized. Emotional brands have a significant impact when the consumer experiences a strong and lasting attachment to the brand comparable to a feeling of bonding, companionship or love. Examples of emotional branding include the nostalgic attachment to the Kodak brand of film, bonding with the Jim Beam bourbon brand, and love for the McDonald's brand.
Sensory branding is a type of marketing that appeals to all the senses in relation to the brand. It uses the senses to relate with customers on an emotional level. It is believed that the difference between an ordinary product and a captivating product is emotion. When emotion flows in the marketplace, your product shines. When there is no emotion from the product, customers lack the enthusiasm and passion that launches a product to success. Brands can forge emotional associations in the customers' minds by appealing to their senses. A multi-sensory brand experience generates certain beliefs, feelings, thoughts and opinions to create a brandgon image in the consumer's mind.
A symbol-intensive brand is a brand adopted not only for its functional benefits, but above all, for the strong symbolism and significance that it is able to transmit, allowing a consumer to express his or her identity, to signal status or manifest a sense of belonging to a group.
AISDALSLove, is a hierarchy of effects model in advertising adapted from AIDA's hierarchy of effects model which has been used by many researchers, both academicians and practitioners, to measure the effect of an advertisement.
A consumer-brand relationship, also known as a brand relationship, is the relationship that consumers think, feel, and have with a product or company brand. For more than half a century, scholarship has been generated to help managers and stakeholders understand how to drive favorable brand attitudes, brand loyalty, repeat purchases, customer lifetime value, customer advocacy, and communities of like-minded individuals organized around brands. Research has progressed with inspiration from attitude theory and, later, socio-cultural theories, but a perspective introduced in the early 1990s offered new opportunities and insights. The new paradigm focused on the relationships that formed between brands and consumers: an idea that had gained traction in business-to-business marketing scholarship where physical relationships formed between buyers and sellers.