Aaron Shields’s Mind Terroir

…would still be a tribe. Once again Seth Godin attempts to transform the old into the latest and greatest with his current pop-marketing push: tribes.

The current business environment is as ripe as it will ever be for the concept of movements. With the pressures of the economic downtown, businesses are becoming increasingly cognizant of the importance of loyalists to their profitability. Most companies have approached loyalty as just another marketing tactic, but in the post-downtown economy loyalty is likely to become THE marketing strategy.

Building a movement behind your company is and has always been key to cultivating authentic customer loyalty. But a strategy that was left to one-time fringe businesses like Apple, is now being predicted as the next big thing by marketing gurus like Seth Godin and Jim Collins. Godin sees tribes as the new modern marketing technique, with customers deaf to mass messaging and louder bullhorns; in a recent interview in Inc., Collins foresees movements as being the next evolution of the business enterprise.

Creating movements or tribes (or whatever other buzz word pops onto the scene) is something Cult Brands have known for a long time. Building loyalty and a mass movement behind your brand isn’t about being all things to all people, it’s being one thing to people who already have an inner psychological motivation to embrace what you stand for.

Tags:   Apple · brand · Branding · Business · Collins · Cult · Godin · Marketing · Movements · strategy · TribesNo Comments