Why Customer Belonging Is the Future of Brand Growth

CEOs today are under extraordinary pressure. Digital transformation is racing ahead, economic volatility has become the norm, and retaining top talent has never been harder. Traditional growth levers—bigger ad spends, deeper discounts, louder campaigns—no longer guarantee results.

The real question leaders face is: How do you build sustainable growth when customers have more choices, higher expectations, and less patience than ever before?

The Hidden Growth Driver

Research shows that emotionally connected customers deliver 306% higher lifetime value than the average buyer. Customers who feel like they belong to your brand community don’t just purchase more often—they forgive mistakes, defend your reputation, and become your most powerful advocates.

Why? 

Because belonging is not a marketing gimmick. It is a fundamental human need. Abraham Maslow placed it just after food, shelter, and safety in his hierarchy. We are hardwired to seek tribes, groups, and communities that affirm who we are.

Brands that understand this—Apple, Harley-Davidson, Patagonia, LEGO—don’t just sell products. They create identity, rituals, and shared experiences. Their customers aren’t just buyers; they’re members.

The CEO’s Opportunity

The CEOs who embrace belonging unlock growth that competitors cannot touch.

  • Patagonia built a billion-dollar business by standing for sustainability, earning 75% higher trust than its peers.
  • Salesforce turned its Dreamforce conference into a 170,000-person annual pilgrimage, transforming software into a movement.
  • Harley-Davidson created the Harley Owners Group, boosting repeat sales by 30% and turning riders into evangelists.

These examples prove that when brands give people a community to join, not just a product to buy, loyalty becomes exponential.

How to Start Creating Belonging

Building belonging to your brand doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentional leadership. Here are three practical steps to start:

  1. Conduct an Emotional Branding Audit. Go beyond surveys and transactions. Ask: Where do customers feel a connection with us, and where do they feel indifferent?
  2. Build Community Touchpoints. Create rituals, forums, or shared experiences where your customers can see themselves reflected in others. (Think Harley rallies, Apple stores, or Starbucks as a “third place.”)
  3. Align Culture with Customers. Employees are the front line of belonging. Purpose-driven companies see 79% higher employee retention. When your people believe in the mission, your customers feel it.

The Payoff of Belonging

The results are undeniable:

  • Loyal customers spend 67% more.
  • Cult-brand customers are 32% more forgiving during crises.
  • And perhaps most importantly: customers who feel like they belong will bring their friends, family, and colleagues along with them.

Belonging is no longer optional. It is the growth multiplier of the future.

September 30, 2025 by

The Digital Mindset: A Lesson from Tsedal Neeley

Tsedal Neeley is the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration and Chair of the MBA Program at Harvard Business School. She’s also a board director, bestselling author, and one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices on leadership and the future of work.

Recently, she shared a simple but profound reminder: 

Everyone should develop at least 30% fluency in AI, data, and digital transformation.

Not mastery. Not a PhD. Not coding fluency. Just 30%.

Enough to know what AI can do. Enough to know what it cannot.

That’s where it clicked.

Because most leaders I meet want certainty. They want control. They want the whole playbook before they move. But the truth is—you don’t need the whole thing. You need just enough fluency to ask better questions, to see possibilities, to make smarter decisions.

Neeley broke it down beautifully:

  • Understand the basics—machine learning, algorithms, data privacy.
  • Commit to learning continuously—technology won’t wait.
  • Learn to collaborate—with people, and with machines.
  • Transform your mindset—innovation comes from curiosity, not fear.

Simple. Clear. Demanding.

But here’s the line that stayed with me: Humans with AI will do better than humans without AI.

It’s not us vs. the machines. It’s us with them.

And that’s the deeper lesson. Because this isn’t just about technology. It’s about how we grow.

Brands need the same fluency. But not in data or algorithms—in culture. In belonging. In human identity. A brand fluent in culture thrives. A brand blind to culture fades.

So yes, learn AI. Learn data. Learn the digital basics. Get your 30%.

But don’t stop there. Build your cultural fluency, too.

Because the future won’t just belong to those who understand the machines. It will belong to those who understand people.

September 28, 2025 by

Why Brands Need Struggle

Carl Jung once said, “Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health.”

The same is true for brands. Yet many instinctively avoid difficulty. They shy away from conflict, from tough expectations, or from friction with customers.

But here’s the paradox: the very struggles brands embrace are the ones that make them extraordinary.

  • The Ritz-Carlton empowers every employee to spend up to $2,000 to solve a guest’s problem on the spot. Why? Because service excellence isn’t born from avoiding complaints—it’s forged in the fire of difficult customer moments. Handling problems with grace is what made Ritz-Carlton legendary.
  • Google has endured enormous scrutiny, from antitrust battles to user trust issues. Each difficulty forced it to adapt, evolve, and reassert its mission to “organize the world’s information.” Those struggles built resilience into the brand’s DNA.
  • Ferrari isn’t known for comfort or convenience. Its cars are difficult to build, difficult to maintain, and often difficult to drive. But that difficulty is exactly what fuels Ferrari’s mystique. To own one is to embrace the challenge—and the reward is status, passion, and belonging to an elite tribe.

Brands that lean into difficulty don’t just survive—they grow stronger, more resilient, and more loved.And as an afterthought: this principle is just as true for people. Struggles in our own lives—the frustrations, the setbacks, the imperfections—are not obstacles to growth. They are growth.

September 26, 2025 by

Does Your Brand Look, Say, and Feel Right to Your Customer?

In the race for innovation, growth, and market share, many brands forget a simple truth: customers don’t fall in love with complexity—they fall in love with clarity.

At the heart of every Cult Brand is a clear and consistent emotional experience. And one of the fastest ways to evaluate your brand’s connection with its customer is through three deceptively simple words: Look, Say, Feel.

🔍 Look:

Does your visual identity tell a compelling story before you say a word?

If your logo vanished, would customers still recognize you from your imagery, packaging, or website? 

What story is your storefront, homepage, or ad layout telling your Brand Lover?

🗣 Say:

Are you speaking with your customer or at them?

Look at your headlines, email subject lines, product descriptions—do they express a real point of view, or are they interchangeable with your competitors? 

Can your customer quote your brand back to you?

💓 Feel:

What emotional signature does your brand leave behind?

Are you designing your brand for utility or for resonance?

How do your customers feel after interacting with you—and does your team know?Most executives focus on strategy and operations. But perception is the soil that trust and loyalty grow from. If your brand doesn’t Look, Say, and Feel aligned with your customer’s internal world, you’re not building a brand—you’re managing a commodity.

September 23, 2025 by

Marvel’s Multiverse of Loyalty

Marvel Studios may be facing theatrical turbulence, but its brand remains strong.

While critics point to “superhero fatigue” and underperforming films, Marvel has never relied solely on its box office performance. The brand’s real power lies in how it connects with its most loyal fans—its Brand Lovers—across comics, animation, games, television, merchandise, and events.

As outlined in the Cult Branding Workbook, true brand loyalty stems from meaningful relationships. Marvel continues to nurture these relationships across multiple channels, even when the spotlight dims on one.

Comics and Games: Engines of Loyalty

While moviegoers may hesitate, core fans are diving into Marvel’s newly rebooted Ultimate Universe, a fresh take on classic characters designed with reader feedback in mind. At the same time, the launch of Marvel Rivals, a multiplayer game with Twitch integrations and a $500,000 global tournament, shows Marvel’s investment in participatory brand experiences.

Consumers want to be part of something different. These ecosystems reward speculation, identity, and shared rituals—hallmarks of Cult Brand behavior.

Lessons for Brand Leaders

Brands must manage three dimensions—offering, space, and time—to create compelling experiences. Marvel excels here, orchestrating comics, games, shows, and films as interconnected touchpoints. From comic shop visits to Twitch streams to streaming binge sessions, fans are given constant opportunities to engage.

The Takeaway

Marvel’s strength is not just its intellectual property—it’s the multichannel relationship it maintains with its Brand Lovers. That’s what makes it a Cult Brand. When one format underperforms, the emotional connection remains intact because the brand lives in many places fans already care about.

For brand builders, the question is clear: Are we creating a brand that lives across the touchpoints our customers already use, or are we still hoping they’ll only meet us on our terms?

September 21, 2025 by

Equity Supercharges Advertising

One of the clearest truths in marketing is also one of the easiest to forget: 

Brands with higher awareness get far greater return from the same media spend.

This isn’t a vague theory—it’s been demonstrated across multiple platforms, from ecommerce marketplaces to TikTok. The effect is consistent and undeniable:

  • Low Awareness (20%) → baseline efficiency
  • Medium Awareness (40%) → 1.48x conversion rate
  • High Awareness (60%) → 2.86x conversion rate

That’s nearly three times the conversion power for the same level of investment.

Why It Matters

Advertising effectiveness in any given year is largely the result of cumulative investment in prior years.

  • Channel choice, targeting, and creative optimization all play a role.
  • But compared to equity, they are small determinants.

Equity is the multiplier. The more people know and trust your brand, the harder every marketing dollar works.

This aligns with what Paul Dyson found in his analysis of advertising profitability: existing brand size is the single biggest driver of payback. Larger brands benefit because they already carry equity, distribution, and cultural presence. The insight here is critical: awareness is one lever marketers can intentionally grow.

The Long Game

The takeaway is simple:

  • Don’t just evaluate campaigns in isolation.
  • Plan on 3–5 year horizons, where the compounding effects of awareness really show up.
  • Recognize that channels like TV are not just performance drivers—they’re equity builders.

This is the same principle I highlighted in my post about TV: TV makes every other channel work harder. Awareness is the mechanism behind that lift. Build it, and your digital, social, and search spend all pull more weight.

For brand leaders: 

Equity is not a soft metric. 

It’s a financial asset that compounds. The stronger your awareness, the lower your acquisition costs, the higher your pricing power, and the deeper your moat.

For agencies: the responsibility is clear. Plan for the interdependencies between channels. Run ongoing experiments. Measure long-term equity effects, not just short-term clicks.

Final Word

The biggest driver of advertising efficiency isn’t the latest targeting hack. It’s the equity you’ve already built—and the discipline to keep investing in it.

When in doubt, grow awareness.

When in doubt, add TV.Because equity doesn’t just fuel conversions. It fuels culture, belonging, and loyalty—the true growth engines of cult brands.

September 19, 2025 by

Why TV Still Wins

If you’re serious about growth, invest in TV.

TV isn’t just another channel—it’s the stage where brands earn cultural relevance. When done right, it becomes more than advertising. It becomes a signal of trust, a story customers carry with them, and a catalyst for loyalty.

TV Still Matters

1. It elevates your brand.
TV builds perceived quality and pricing power. Customers assume what they see on TV is worth more.

2. It drives both now and later.
From immediate sales spikes to long-term brand equity, TV works across timelines.

3. It imprints your brand into culture.
Shared viewing creates shared meaning. TV transforms brands into part of the cultural conversation.

4. It grows market share with unmatched reach.
Nothing scales your story faster or further.

5. It proves its worth.
TV is measurable. From leads to conversions, its impact shows up in the numbers.

The Multiplier Effect

Here’s the part most brands underestimate: 

TV amplifies everything else.

When you add TV to the mix, all your other channels work harder.

  • For one client, leads from other channels grew 12% after TV was added.
  • Kantar found removing TV can reduce a campaign’s impact by 39%.

TV isn’t just about reach—it’s about synergy. It supercharges your entire marketing ecosystem.

The Cult Brand Perspective

Cult Brands understand a timeless truth: the goal isn’t just awareness, it’s belonging.

TV accelerates that belonging by turning your message into a cultural event customers want to talk about, share, and join.

So, when in doubt, add TV.

Because TV doesn’t just advertise. It cements identity, builds trust, and powers devotion.

And in a marketplace where customers are skeptical and distracted, that’s the ultimate growth advantage.

✨ Pro Tip: Pair your TV strategy with community-building initiatives. When you combine cultural reach with customer belonging, you’re no longer just running ads—you’re building a movement.

September 16, 2025 by

Why We Join: The Deeper Truth Behind Cult Brands

If someone asked me to define a cult brand, I wouldn’t start with logos or marketing campaigns. I’d start with people.

At its core, a cult brand isn’t just a company with loyal customers. It’s a brand that people join.

In our research (Why We Join), we found that people align with brands the same way they join families, tribes, and communities. It’s not about the product alone; it’s about identity. When you wear Vans, drive a MINI, or crack open a can of Liquid Death, you’re signaling something about who you are and who you belong with.

The Fork in the Road

Regular brands succeed by being convenient, safe, and broadly acceptable. Think Camry, Marriott, or even Budweiser. If you swapped them out for an alternative, most customers wouldn’t notice. These brands thrive in the middle, sanding off edges to appeal to the largest number of people possible.

Cult brands take the opposite path. They lean into the edges, not away from them. They speak to something deeper: a customer’s need for self-expression, meaning, and belonging. That’s why a MINI owner waves at another MINI on the road. That’s why Harley riders form lifelong bonds. That’s why Supreme drops sell out in minutes.

Why We Join

Psychologist Erik Erikson described fidelity, the capacity to commit to a cause, as a key marker of identity. Cult brands tap directly into this human drive. They create a shared consciousness, rituals, and even a sense of moral responsibility among their fans. In other words, they create belonging.

When customers say, “This brand gets me,” they’re not just describing a product. They’re describing a relationship that validates who they are. That’s the secret behind cult brands: they don’t chase mass acceptance. They cultivate Brand Lovers.

Characteristics of Cult Brands

From our Cult Branding Workbook, here are the consistent traits you’ll find in every true cult brand:

  • Differentiation: They stand apart, sometimes defiantly.
  • Cultural Shift: They tap into or create movements larger than themselves.
  • Compelling Story: They have origin stories that invite customers into the myth.
  • Community: They foster rituals, inside language, and shared experiences.
  • Longevity: Unlike fads, they deepen over time because they meet real human needs.

The Truth for Brand Builders

If you want to build for the masses, chase convenience, price, and normalcy. That’s fine, but don’t expect passion.

If you want to build a cult brand, build for the people who care. Invest in meaning, difference, and community. Be willing to say, “This might not be for you.”

Because the truth is simple: people don’t just buy cult brands. They join them.

September 14, 2025 by

Why Some Brands Earn Devotion, and Others Don’t

Every industry has its “safe bets.” The products and services that succeed by being reliable, consistent, and available. They’re the brands people don’t mind switching out for a cheaper alternative at the grocery store or at the car rental counter.

But then there are the other kinds of brands. The ones that inspire loyalty bordering on obsession. Fans line up overnight, tattoo logos on their skin, or spend hours in online communities debating the latest release.

Why do some brands reach cult status while others fade into background noise?

It Starts With Identity, Not Product

Cult brands don’t sell products; they sell belonging. When you buy a Rivian, you’re not just getting an electric vehicle; you’re signaling your commitment to sustainability and adventure. When you crack open a can of Liquid Death, you’re not just hydrating; you’re participating in a countercultural joke on consumerism itself.

In The Cult Branding Workbook, we call these people Brand Lovers, customers who see themselves in the brand, who adopt it as part of their identity.

They Dare to Be Different

One of the Golden Rules of Cult Branding is Courage. Cult brands aren’t afraid to turn some people off in order to deeply connect with others. Supreme drops clothing in such limited quantities that it frustrates most consumers, but that very act builds desire among its loyal fans.

They Build Community

Apple has its keynote events. CrossFit has its boxes. Harley-Davidson has its rallies. The real magic of cult brands happens when customers don’t just consume, they participate. Shared rituals and traditions transform buyers into tribes.

The Fork in the Road

Every brand faces the same decision: chase mass convenience, or pursue meaningful difference. You can’t do both. If you want to be everywhere, play it safe. If you want to be irreplaceable, lean into your edges.

Cult status isn’t about being flashy or expensive. It’s about being worth caring about.

And here’s the irony: when you stop trying to appeal to everyone, you often build something that a precious few will never let go of.

September 12, 2025 by

Why You Shouldn’t Build for People Who Don’t Care

If your brand disappeared tomorrow, would anyone really miss it?

That’s the uncomfortable question most companies avoid. And yet, it’s the line that separates ordinary brands from Cult Brands.

In The Cult Branding Workbook, we make a critical distinction: most products succeed by being reliable, accessible, and convenient. They’re designed for people who don’t care that much. Drive a Camry, stay at a Marriott, wear the sneakers that happened to be on sale. No strong feelings, no loyalty. Customers shrug, consume, and move on.

Cult Brands play a very different game. They deliberately choose not to chase the center. Instead, they embrace the edges. MINI doesn’t sell to the driver who wants another “safe choice.” Liquid Death doesn’t market to people who just want “water in a bottle.” Supreme doesn’t cater to the shopper who’s happy with whatever hoodie is cheapest at the mall.

This isn’t about price. It’s about passion. It’s about creating what we call Brand Lovers, the select group of people who invest time, attention, and identity in what you make. These are the customers who tattoo your logo on their bodies, who line up for hours, who defend your brand when it stumbles. They care deeply. And that’s why they’re worth building for.

The trap many companies fall into is believing they can do both: serve the people who don’t care and create fanatical loyalty. But the two paths diverge:

  • If you want ubiquity, invest in convenience, consistency, and price.
  • If you want loyalty, invest in difference, meaning, and community.

As we teach in the Workbook’s Golden Rule of Courage, great brands have the guts to say: “This might not be for you.” That statement doesn’t alienate; it clarifies. It tells the masses to move on and invites your true believers closer.

Because in the end, brands built for people who don’t care will never be loved. And only love has the power to make your brand unforgettable.

September 9, 2025 by