In Brands We Trust
Musings on cult status season
Modern brands have learned that building an insider community can turn casual buyers into diehards. Community management is now a strategic discipline with brands mining their followers’ passion and slang for ideas, and giving them early access or perks. Their goal is to make you feel like part of an exclusive club, not just a mailing list. Buying into a cult means you’re buying into a tribe.
Cult-like loyalty doesn’t spring from thin air, it is carefully engineered through story and style. The best brands operate like storytellers and aesthetic auteurs. They create a world you want in on. Apple’s minimalist mythology has helped it achieve a 90% brand loyalty rate (virtually unheard of in tech). Nothing says cultural capital like being able to say “I got in and you didn’t”. Brands know that - and they’re weaponising FOMO with a passion.
Scarcity is the oldest trick in the cult-brand book, yet it still works wonders.
Brands are increasingly building invite-only communities and loyalty programmes that feel like secret societies. As ancient as it sounds, but even Gmail was invite-only back in the day. The same concept is being applied now: new social apps launch with waitlists, and brands use everything to make purchases feel like golden tickets.
And as we all know, exclusivity isn’t about products either, it can be about places. Luxury hospitality brands take this to the extreme, blurring brand, lifestyle, and even spirituality. Aman Resorts has their infamous Aman Junkies - guests so loyal that they plan their travel around Aman properties like collectors checking off a series.
Of course, the tech world is no stranger to experiential fanaticism either. Tesla achieved its cult-like aura without a dime spent on marketing. It created an experience out of owning a car - software updates that feel like Christmas morning, passionate online communities of owners, and a maverick CEO whose every tweet becomes global news. If you look closely at their rhetorics, Tesla owners so often describe buying their car as joining a mission (sustainable transport, tech utopia, etc), not just making a simple purchase. And as long as record sales keep rolling - Tesla saw record EV sales even as Musk’s antics divided the public. That cult status is an asset all companies would kill for.
On the flip side of tech, sometimes it’s the lack of a charismatic figure that rallies the cult following, a sort of anti-cult appeal. When OpenAI ousted and then rapidly reinstated CEO Sam Altman in late 2024, the uproar from employees and users alike showed how even a B2B tech brand can inspire fierce loyalty. OpenAI became a movement, and people felt personally invested in its fate. That’s cultural capital. When our product stands for something bigger (in this case, the future of AI and who controls it) and your users rally as if defending a friend.
What do all of these examples have in common? They show that emotional connection is the new coin of the realm. In an era of infinite choices and algorithmically enhanced indifference, the only way to stand out is to mean something to people - as cheesy as it sounds. Successful brands in 2025 don’t just sell products or services, they sell belonging, identity, meaning, community. They cultivate an us-vs-them mentality (even if the ‘them’ is just boring rival brands). They design every touchpoint, from logo to store layout, to telegraph a distinct vibe. They leverage scarcity and mystery - as one marketing saying goes ‘if you know, you know’ - and the ones who know become free evangelists.
In the end, it’s all about meaning in a marketplace. It’s almost ironic that in a time of rampant individualism, many of us are finding identity by aligning with larger brand communities. Call it post-modern belonging or just really effective and convincing marketing - either way, it’s defining consumer culture right now and it doesn’t seem to change anytime soon. So the next time you find yourself defending your choice of tech, ask yourself: have I joined a cult, or am I just enjoying a really well-crafted brand experience? The difference may be academic.