Rolex produce high-quality, good looking watches, but let’s face it - it’s not the reason people buy them. They’re a status symbol, a sign of success, wealth and a trophy to show the world how well you’re doing.
There are plenty of high-quality, good looking watches on the market for a fraction of the price, but the consumer doesn’t just buy the watch, they buy the idea of the brand and the lifestyle associated with it.
Maybe you’re not that interested in displaying your wealth, truth be told I'm not either, but consciously or subconsciously we are associating ourselves to brands and products. We can’t help but be influenced by how we’re perceived by others, and everything we adopt is an indicator of how we wish to be seen by the world.
There are several brands I adopted in my formative teens that I still carry today, they contribute to my external identity, lifestyle, and ultimately define how I present myself to the rest of society. It’s not just the style or aesthetic I’m buying into, it’s the values these brands hold, and for me that make up consists of; freedom, expression, art, music and creativity.
With that said, today I’m talking to you about:
Four brands that influenced cult-like phenomena
The Dot-Com Throne
Are you sitting comfortably? If you're sitting in an office, there’s a good chance you’re sitting on an Aeron, an ergonomic masterpiece with a design so good it’s been on permanent display in MoMA since 1994, a few years before the dot-com boom.
The Herman Miller Aeron is elegant, ergonomic, and suitable for multiple body types. As a brand with the infamous Eames Lounge Chair in their portfolio, it’s no surprise that the Aeron caught on and as a result became so associated with the dot-com boom that it gained the title ‘The Dot-Com Throne’.
This chair was a symbol that showed both employees, and the outside world you were a cool, high-tech, forward-thinking business.
Start-ups wanted a piece of this aspirational brand as they dreamt about making a name for themselves in the new digital frontier. Unfortunately, when the bubble burst the chairs would find themselves ‘piled up in a corner as a kind of corporate graveyard’.
The It Girl
Back before social media, we had magazines and the tabloids, and the pages were cluttered with papped pictures of celebrities going about their day-to-day. Often these celebs would have an accessory in hand, and it wasn’t a designer bag, or a mobile phone, it was a Starbucks cup.
Those that drew style inspiration from the glossy pages wanted to be just like ‘the it girls’ they admired and not only had these pictures influenced their fashion aesthetic, it had influenced their casual coffee consumption habits too.
Fast forward to now and a lot of young women draw their inspiration from TikTok and Instagram, with UGC and influencer content showing off secret menu items, hacks, and celebrity orders. A quick Google search for ‘starbucks celebrities’ will throw up a ton of results with titles like ‘10 Celebs Go-To Starbucks Orders’ or ‘Celebrities Who Love Starbucks and What They Order’.
The trendy cup accessory is still massively popular, and right now it’s even moved away from containing the actual ‘coffee to go’ to just being a reusable water cup with the iconic green straw.
The Artist
Back when I was studying Graphic Design, there were three must-have items every designer needed to have in their arsenal - a Macbook, a Sharpie, and a Moleskine. It was fairly obvious that as a designer I was going to need a computer to use Adobe, something to take notes with, and something to draw my sketches in, but why a Moleskine?
It all began in the studios of 19th-century Paris, when artists and authors like Van Gogh, Picasso and Hemingway started using pocket-sized notebooks or carnets, covered in leather or oilskin. These books were known as ‘Moleskines’ due to their black oilcloth binding.
Italian design company Modo & Modo borrowed the name Moleskine, trademarking it for their own to release the french-inspired notebooks in 1997.
Although Modo & Modo were careful never to claim that these artists had used their reborn Moleskine, they made sure the connection was made in their marketing and that was enough to inspire a new generation of creatives.
The Moleskine brand is like a seal of approval in the creative world, and those that don the book aspire to be as iconic as the early adopting artists themselves.
The Non-Conformist
One of the most iconic fashion brands of all time is without doubt Dr. Martens, the brand has been integral in youth fashion and British-born subcultures for decades.
The boots were initially adopted by Skinheads in the mid-60’s, a movement that celebrated ska music and multiculturalism, with a uniform of turned-up drainpipes, checkered shirts and a pair of cherry red DMs.
Over the years, the boots have continued to be loved by new evolving music-fueled scenes, from punks and goths, to grungers and metal heads.
The bold leather boots are a statement of being different, going against the mainstream, empowering rebellious self-expression and the ideals of the non-conformist.
So I want you to ask yourself:
How can my brand create a cult-like phenomena and culture ran by the brand adopters?
