Much has been written about the devotional relationship between Apple fans and the brand. For example… The Apple brand promise offers transcendence to a “marginalized” creative minority. The retail structure appears to echo Christian ‘retail’ with welcoming disciples, theaters where iMovie sermons are preached, and sins can be absolved at the Genius Bar confessional. The [...]
At the end of last year, during the turmoil over the succession of Maison Martin Margiela, we wrote a piece about the relationship between Margiela the designer, and Margiela the brand.
The white paper points out how lessons from real-world cults would have helped the Margiela brand consolidate the cult of invisibility that it had spent [...]
In terms of belief strategy, no brand is more credible – or literal – about the way that it positions its brand than the Trappist beer, Westvleteren.
The brand goes go against all modern business methods and thrives as a result, and as a case study of how luxury brands can operate to create an element [...]
Many brands talk about rituals – especially the need to create new rituals but very few brands understand what the role of rituals should be. It can be surprising to see how often the word is used by brands, but how rarely it’s understood. But perhaps the misuse of the idea of ritual is not [...]
We just published a white paper on Maison Martin Margiela and the Cult of Invisibility; is available for download…
“Between 1988 and 2009, Maison Martin Margiela grew into a global cult brand. At the heart of the cult was the noisy invisibility of the eponymous designer.
In October 2009, after several years of intrigued – [...]
Vigilant Citizen is an esoteric – and fascinating – look at occult symbols in contemporary culture. Recently, their conspiracy analysis of the illuminati symbols in the work of Lady Gaga became a semi-viral sensation.
In an earlier post, they examined the relationship between esoteric symbols and brand logos. In particular, the relationship between the winged [...]