The Business of Aspiration: How Social, Cultural, and Environmental Capital Changes Brands

Membership is also a vehicle of the modern aspiration economy. It represents a shift from doing things for the benefit of others (conspicuous consumption), to a value model where we invest in things that benefit ourselves: access, knowledge, information, experience, privacy, belonging, self-actualization.

Membership activates learning. The first step here is to define the lifestyle area that members can refine, improve upon, and be more informed about.

Not long ago, wearing real fur was a signal of wealth and status. Now, it’s a signal of ignorance. In contrast, fake fur is inexpensive, but it displays status lent by awareness about climate crisis and importance of sustainability.

Membership recognizes and rewards a brand’s superfans. It amplifies their social and cultural capital through content, tools, access, products, events, and their physical and digital properties.

Lavishly funded by venture capital, startup brands are in the position to undercut incumbents on price and service, all the while being unprofitable. The result is that money-losing companies can go on undercutting competition far longer than before.

Thanks to taste regimes, we get more joy out of the everyday. We also adopt a new mechanism for social distinction and status signaling. A taste regime provides social links and holds a taste community together, and sets apart one taste community from another.

Membership recognizes that a brand’s consumers are not a monolithic group, but a network of subgroups and niches. A good membership program’s unique value proposition, messaging, benefits, and how they are conveyed through look, feel, and tone of voice are tailored to each of these subgroups and niches.

Curation gives even mundane objects value by connecting them with a point of view, heritage, a subculture, or purpose that makes them stand out in the vortex of speed, superficiality, and newness.

Thanks to the Internet, products across categories are now more susceptible to trends than to individual preferences. It’s easy to blame algorithms for the sameness of our taste choices, but the real culprit is us. Humans use social signals to quickly orient themselves in the world.