Cultrepreneurs: Are they the next breed of branders?

Today, you can travel almost anywhere in the world, encounter cultures of staggering diversity, grapple with languages derived from a myriad of sources, and yet, for all that, never lose sight of what’s familiar. Because from Istanbul to Sydney, Rome to Prague, Hong Kong to Hamburg, there’s always something you know.

There’s nothing human about these elements of continuity, yet they appeal precisely because they address aspects of the human condition in each of us. They transcend syntax and yet, in doing so, they have been carefully and specifically designed to speak to everyone.

Welcome to the cosy contradictions of the branded world. This is the time of the brandemic.

Brands have exploded on the back of the globalised economy. As market barriers have fallen like Berlin Walls, free trade has blossomed, the corporate view of where and how to do business has changed scope, and a whole new generation has discovered consumerism, the diversity of markets open to those committed to being everywhere has widened immeasurably. Today, there are not just one or two world-brands, there are hundreds, competing for attention and emerging market share in first-through-fourth world economies across the planet.

Pick a city. Look around. Chances are Coke, Kodak, American Express, Gucci, Swatch and Nike will be close by. Down a street, Calvin Klein, Oakley, Visa, Fendi, FCUK and Burger King beckon.

For consumers, the reassurance is instant. If you’re local, these are names you know. Familiar. Quantified. Assured. Relaxing. Available. There and then, you have access to the worldwide movement of your choice. In fact, you can be part of many different movements, changing your colours, your allegiances, your sense of what you’re about in an instant. Adidas this morning, Reebok this afternoon, Columbia tonight, Timberland tomorrow. The brands you wear, eat, drink, sleep in, smoke, drive or own are part of how you choose to define yourself. And if you’re not local – no matter. Because these brands still reach you. They comfort and reassure. They provide instant visual cues. They are part of home. Part of who you are and how you’ve lived.

Not sure if you’d touch the local whisky? Don’t bother – ask for Jack. Prefer a beer? Have a Heineken or a Bud. Certain in what you’re getting because you understand what you’ve been promised.

The power of the megabrands is that they have found ways to speak to our hopes and aspirations, our ego and our instinctual collectiveness. Chanel took a sense of style and grace that was once seen as intrinsically Parisian, and made it not just desirable but also accessible (for the better-to-do at least) in almost every consumerist society. Nike recognised that the will to achieve, or at least sense triumph, ran deep and wide.

Decades before almost anyone else, Coke recognised they could take over the world by giving everyone a bottle of enjoyment at an affordable price. The brand strategist Martin Lindestrom has summarised the power of the little black drink and its packaging in his writings about “pieces of Coke”. Smash a bottle of Coke, he suggests, and throw the pieces on the floor, then ask a friend to identify them. They will. Why? Because Lindestrom says, Coke have instilled their brand in every aspect of their being, right down to their presentation.

Of course, it’s not just globalised economies that have fuelled brandemia. The media has now delivered consumers whole new ways to unite. Watch a Formula One race with millions of others. See the Oscars with billions. Today, we virtually witness the Olympics as a world. Television, pay-per-view, cable and the internet have birthed a whole new sense of scale.

The availability of such mega-forums has done more than just up the ante however; it’s anted the up. It’s changed the rules. Today, with the right backing, a brand can be as big as the forum in which it chooses to be seen. If you want to play in the big league, thanks to the opportunities offered by mega-events and these global channels, the possibility to do so does exist. All the once-standard pre-requisites have gone. Local ownership. No. Physical presence. Not always. Track record in that country. No longer mandatory. Payment in local currency. Redundant to a degree. Someone to talk to. Sure, but they may be half a world away when you do. And so on ... It doesn’t always follow that said brand will be successful, but the opportunity to be big and play big has arguably never been easier or greater.

Some companies have little option but to compete this way. Their business model or the sheer competitiveness of the market demands it. Amazon is a global idea. So is Diners Card. They’re big by nature and ambition. Their very business models demand size, scope, power and reach. Relatively small tickets clipped often to produce large turnover.

Others have been forced to fight this way – for a range of reasons: either they take it to the competition, or the competition brings the fight to them; fluctuating currencies bring the need to hedge across different economic regions; maturing markets need to be topped up with new areas of expansion.

Luxury clothing label Ermenegildo Zegna recognised this before most. They started out in a small Italian village called Trivero in 1910. By the 1970s, Zegna had begun internationalising its operations in a drive to diversify risk. By the 1980s, it was opening its own shops in Paris and Milan. Today, Ermenegildo Zegna derives 80 percent of its revenue internationally – from North America, Europe and Asia. The brand has more than 300 stores, including 130 boutiques, worldwide, manufacturing in Switzerland and Spain and plants in Turkey and Mexico – and they are continuing to expand aggressively into Asia, with new shops in Japan and China. They have little option but to compete this way. Their biggest competitor, Hugo Boss, is also global. A market unsecured quickly becomes a market unavailable.

Public companies too, especially those fuelled by institutional cash, are expected to be expansionist and to generate institutional results in ever shorter timeframes. Investors have no patience. They want to see progress and upwardly mobile dividends. To produce these, the companies must continue to drive their brands into new markets. Good morning, Vietnam ...

But it would be a mistake to see Colosseus brands as the only option for how branding will progress. Indeed, while the business case to globalise might be irrefutable for some, for others it is a warning of where not to head. And that’s because, there are signs that the opportunity tide might be turning.

Politics, particularly among the young in first world economies, could hit the big brands very hard. If disenchantment with globalisation changes gear to a higher level of intensity, then big scale players could begin to feel the pinch. So far, the murmurings are disparate and marginalised, but anti-establishment factionalism – a feeling that corporations, and their brands cannot and should not have the world by right – could groundswell in first and second world economies in coming years.

For a very small but vocal minority right now, brands are objects of derision, badges of greed. American imperialism at work, symbols of a loss of purity. They represent the invasion of free trade, the confiscation of intellectual property and a thousand other evils. They have a point – to a point. Microsoft can behave in ways that are very, well, Microsoft. Dell Corning didn’t exactly take a sympathetic approach to the women who had developed problems as a result of their implants. Anecdotes and conspiracy theories abound. Of course, it’s way too early to tell how far or how fast these feelings will extend – whether they are a significant trend or a media headline – but they are there, and while the anti-brand presence may not yet be felt, it is at least being noted.

Of more immediate concern to the Goliaths though is success itself. The ongoing rise and rise of mass market brands is rapidly evolving huge into a me-too. As the sheer numbers of mega-brands continues to accelerate, it’s almost impossible to be the one big brand in the world’s high street anymore. There’s a sense that the world may indeed be shrinking and that commoditisation will continue to erode value, prestige and presence for all but the most resilient. Perhaps the age of Cortes is over. Competitor expansionism, mega-mergers and hostile takeovers are all signs that the mega-brand conquistadors face new battles. The close-in is on. But has the Ice Age begun?

Ownership too is changing. Sure, Larry’s still at the helm of Oracle, and we all know about the great job Jack Welch did at GE, but the Saatchis no longer own Saatchi & Saatchi, and the Guccis no longer own Gucci. How significant is it that it’s increasingly difficult to put a face or a personality to at least some of the big brands? Quick! Who owns Universal Music today? ... Exactly, I don’t know either.

Does this change our feelings towards global brands? It could, particularly when those brands have been developed through a personality. What will happen when customers feel that they are becoming the means to a corporate result, rather than treasured, individualised buyers? And exactly how much attention can a brand lavish on those who are devoted to it when it has to compete and perform in so many places at one time, and its key report is its shareholders and their insatiable demand for more money? Even an icon CEO can only be in so many places in so many times.

Pressures all round then for the big players – from within and from without. But as Enron showed, huge is not always invulnerable. In fact, it can become a bigger space in which to park irregularities. And as Martha Stewart proved, it doesn’t take much for the compliance police to turn on an organisation, and for the highest of fliers to find themselves fighting for their corporate and personal reputation.

Globalisation has benefitted scale-driven brands enormously, but it’s equally clear that the continuing spread of corporate influence and the ongoing demand for more and more resources and better and better results with which to feed the insatiable investor institutions must inevitably give way to Einstein’s principle. An opposite reaction – not equal yet perhaps, but happening nevertheless.

Brandemia may still be in full swing, growing bigger and bigger undoubtedly, but there is now a relatively new phenomenon, the categorical reverse – the deliberately and decidely obscure brand, recognised and demanded by those “in the know”, ignored by everyone else.

Driving this new trend are the people I see as the real ones to watch: the new rising stars of business. They may work worldwide, but they do not have, nor do they seek to have, global mega-brands. They are hugely successful on their own terms and those of their customers, yet they can be unknown by anyone else. They are expanding explosively, yet that growth often takes place outside everything but the peripheral vision of the public eye. They are the most famous brands you have not yet heard of – and may never do so. And they are inspired, governed and driven by those who’ve made the conscious choice to build their business not on traditional marketing and footprint, but on fanatical loyalty.

Ladies and gentlemen, keep an eye out for the cultrepreneurs - entrepreneurs building highly profitable cults. My belief is that the next breed of brand will come from them.



Cultrepreneurs: Are they the next breed of branders? - To learn more about this author, visit Mark Di Somma's Website.

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