What we can learn from cults about community.
The point is, we're all out here trying to position our business for difference and to stand out in categories that are full-to-bursting.
When you're lacking in the inspiration department, the most natural thing in the world is to look to your competitors.
What are they saying on their websites or in their socials? How are they packaging their services? Who are they targeting? What looks like it's working?
And of course you get caught up in following the conventions. Before long everyone is doing variations of the same thing.
You're attempting to do what others are doing who may be 2-3 steps ahead of you, because it appears to be working for them.
Honestly, I think you can do better.
The most forward thinking, innovative brands in the world, seek their inspiration from the edges and the extremes. Not as a direct roadmap to copy, but to give them a series of different perspectives and provocations, that take their thinking in different directions.
Whatever your industry and stage of business, you can do things differently to others. And you should.
In my previous strategy work with brands, I've spent my time exploring:
Disney SUPER FANDOM... to understand how crazes catch.
CULTS... to understand how to built deep community.
DRUG REHAB... to understand how people to commit to programmes.
SUBCULTURES... to understand how to build shared identity.
FEMINIST PUNK... to understand the evolution of gender.
The point is, you go in to learn and to be inspired, not to find a template to copy and that's the kind of creative energy that ignites wildly different ways of looking at things and so totally fresh outputs.
