A Web browser now lurks among the world’s Cult Brands. I know it’s hard to believe. Seriously, how can a Web browser become a lifestyle? A little incident that happened during a lecture should put it into perspective:
When I lectured at an art university last year in Philadelphia, a student brought up the controversy over Dove and Axe—one company, Unilver, responsible for two campaigns: one that empowers women and one that objectifies them.
He asked: “As a product designer, how can I guard against something like this?” I told him that as a designer there’s nothing inherent in a type of soap that makes it required to be marketed as empowering or objectifying towards women; that’s up to the marketing department and the people managing the brand. It’s a seemingly simple question, but one that has important implications for brand development: any product, as long as it’s good, can, with enough imagination, clarity, and direction, be developed into a powerful Cult Brand.
I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox for years and never considered it a Cult Brand until I inadvertently stumbled upon Download Day 2008. Download Day 2008 was organized by Mozilla to celebrate the official release of the 3.0 build by attempting to set a new Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in one day.
Despite technically difficulties, in the early hours, 9000 copies were being downloaded every minute. By the end of the day there were over 8 million downloads, moving the market share for the 3.0 build up from 1% for beta versions to 4%. Not bad for one day.
I began to wonder, could we have another Cult Brand in our midst?
With it’s first official release in November 2004, the Firefox browser has quickly gained in popularity and is currently the second most popular browser, behind Internet Explorer, with an 18.41% market share. Explorer’s lead is huge, but in the past year Explorer’s market share has gone down nearly 6%, while Firefox’s has risen 4%.
At the end of 2004, Microsoft was unwilling to admit the viability of the Firefox browser, with Australian managing director Steve Vamos claiming that Firefox did not offer any real threat. But, by mid 2005 Microsoft’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicated that Firefox offers features that compete with Explorer.
So how does an open source browser go from a non-issue to a serious competitor in under four years? By embracing the same principles that make other Cult Brands successful.
Open source companies are great foundations for building Cult Brands. By being open, they not only invite everyone to participate, but they immediately position themselves against major market competitors and turn big business into an archenemy.
Open source also forces another hallmark of Cult Brands: collaboration. End users can make their own contributions without back end hacks, which shows in the over 2000 add-on applications Firefox users have developed that are available for download through the Firefox Web site.
If allowing users to contribute programs weren’t enough, in 2006, the development team asked users to submit what changes they would like to see in the browser for the current 3.0 release.
This focus on collaboration facilitates the development of a strong sense of community. And Mozilla encourages and supports this sense of community, making it a key element of the mission statement: “And as a non-profit, public benefit organization, we define success in terms of building communities and enriching people’s lives. We believe in the power and potential of the Internet and want to see it thrive for everyone, everywhere.”
With SpeadFirefox.com, they organize online events, like the Download Day 2008, and provide a community of brand evangelists to come together and speak. At FirefoxFlicks.com there are currently 280 user-submitted Firefox commercials. Users wanting to find other Firefox lovers in the real world can head over to MozillaParty.com and organize or look for a Firefox party in their area. And just so you know, 700 3.0 launch parties were registered.
And, what Cult Brand would be complete without some users branding themselves? One tattooed user, attacked the archenemy and altered the logo to show the fox chomping down on the Explorer E. Another user put a Firefox tattoo alongside two other emblems of the open source movement: the GNU mascot and Tux the Linux penguin. But the branded mark that really tripped me out is a crop circle of the Firefox logo generated by two interns that’s visible on Google Earth.
This investigation into the world of Firefox shocked me; I just liked the browser’s features. But now I’m asking myself: Is Firefox the next Linux?