The Next Great Consumer Companies Won’t Be Exclusive Clubs. They Will Be Inclusive Cults.

The goal is to make people feel like they’re a part of something — and like you’re part of their identity. And the payoff — if all goes well — is in the form of fierce loyalty, word-of-mouth promotion, organic curiosity and attention, higher lifetime customer value and share of spend, lower acquisition costs, etc.

As consumers, our most valuable affinities will be to brands and communities, not specific products. 

I’m intrigued with the modern version of a country club. I think of concepts like Soho House or the Wing as “urban country clubs”. These membership businesses gather communities of like-minded people. They create repeat traffic and have demographic and psychographic desirability in their members. These communities are powerful because if they endor... See more

Building a winning community-based brand is the process of being laser focused on a group of people with a shared identity, and developing something for them that makes them feel heard. Elements include establishing an identity that sparks excitement, using a shared language, creating s ocial content that makes them want to share yet feels aestheti... See more