<aside> 💡 Cult: a group or movement exhibiting a great devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing. It is normally innovative in its ideology, exhibits an acute sense of belonging to a well-defined community, enjoys exclusive devotion (that is, not shared with another group), and often enjoys voluntary advocacy on the part of its members.
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<aside> 💡 Cult Brand: a brand for which a group of customers exhibit a great devotion or dedication. It is normally innovative in its ideology, can be identified by having a well-defined community that exhibits an acute sense of belonging, enjoys exclusive devotion (that is, not shared with another brand in the same category), and often enjoys voluntary advocacy on the part of its members.
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The book makes two statements:
Brand and cult devotees are not that different: devotion is blind to its object. The things that make people committed to a brand are likely to be similar to those of a religion.
The same dynamics were at play behind the attraction to brands as the attraction to cults, and even to religions. When research subjects explained their reasons for joining and committing, they described profound urges to belong, make meaning, feel secure, have order within chaos, and create identity.
The marketing industry has been blind to a need that is so essential it is second only to the compulsion for food and shelter: the desire to belong. to ignore this basic need is to overlook a clear major source of business.
“Community marketing” is going to be the next big thing. The smartest marketers have realized that it is possible for communities to to be formed around brands. Community marketing (of which cults are the most extreme) requires different, subtler skills. It needs the ability to “support”, “nurture”, and “listen” to the group that is participating in your brand.
“You are a priest, not a brand manager.”
Marketers should also be engaged in community marketing: cultivating, serving, and infusing brands into communities. Marketers should be obsessed with communities, not just fret about how to market to an impossible number of individuals. This will take a tectonic shift of attitude and practice. Hence, there's a need to outline why it's so important to reorient marketing departments. Because community marketing is going to be the next big thing.
There is one very compelling reason why marketers should focus on developing communities. The human race demands them. In fact, not just demands them, but needs them. Belonging is a fundamental dictate of the human condition. We belong to survive, to make meaning, to determine what’s real. We can't help but want to belong. Not to provide communities is not to satisfy a basic need. And not satisfying a basic need with a commercial answer would be the shame of most business people. It's one that would qualify them to be cast into the business hall of infamy.