Creating demand

How to go beyond performance marketing

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In my last analysis, How to operationalize cultural influence, I looked into the elements of the cultural influence execution strategy. Buy my book The Business of Aspiration and find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads. With the Master Subscription options, join Private Membership Chat, and with the free and lower-tier subscriptions, join The General Chat on The Sociology of Business WhatsApp group. Contact me for the group subscription offers.

Brands increase demand for their products by boosting building their sartorial and cultural credentials. This process requires them to clarify their approach to the market they operate in, e.g. fashion, luxury, sport, music, movies, design, literature, etc. and make it natural and straightforward.

The first step is to define a brand’s aesthetic, make it recognizable and desirable, provide rationale for this aesthetic, and start using it as a narrative device.

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Catch up on the Sociology of Business:

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Brand origins need to be explored in the context of both its core business and the area of culture they want to associate themselves with: e.g. chicness, elegance, romance, effortlessness, play. Explore a brand through its contrasts, starting with its heritage and its future. Ask: if this brand was founded today, how would it look like? What it would be like? If we removed a brand’s logo from our garments, would we still know it’s that brand? 

Further, define the Brand Look and the hero products beyond its most famous items:

• Start weaving a brand’s narrative through symbolic motifs and style signifiers like color palette, design details, styling, annual fashion direction, archive revivals, vintage curation, and special editions, capsules and collaborations

• Stretch a brand’s current wear scenarios through special collections: travel, tailoring,  workwear, evening wear, sleepwear, etc.

• Zoom in on the aspirational shoppers who slowed down their luxury spending, but are still looking for quality and value

• Renew brand associations through creative partnerships and collaborations with global curators, creators, critics, artists and creative communities.

• New hero products need to span different categories (womenswear, menswear, accessories) and are the purest distillation of a brand’s identity and values.

Amplify a brand’s cultural connection by expanding collaborations from products to content, experiences, events, merch, and brand activations.

Connect with the Creative Class: creators, curators, critics, journalists, artists who move ideas around, propagate stories, make connections, and direct consumers’ money and attention. 

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Direct a brand’s media planning towards cultural influence. Identify all different cultural contexts for a brand to participate in and direct media for the maximum impact. Influence those who influence culture. 

Invest in entertainment (content, experiences, merch, cultural programming, a brand’s own IP, archives, and events). Build a strong brand platform that is a springboard not