Cult Brands Uncovered: The 5 Secrets Behind Obsessive Customer Loyalty

In this episode of Business&abrew, Dani and Si dive into the fascinating world of cult brands – the ones people queue overnight for, argue about online, and even tattoo on their bodies. 

They unpack why some companies, like Harley Davidson, Apple, Beaver Town, Lego, and more, move beyond simple brand loyalty to become part of their customers’ identity. 

Along the way, they explore “love marks,” creation myths, enemies, scarcity, and community, and debate whether you can ever truly engineer a cult following or if it’s just the perfect mix of timing, authenticity, and a damn good product. 

With plenty of stories, nostalgia, and a few sharp digs at sellouts, this is a must-listen if you’re obsessed with how brands become movements rather than just merch.

About Simon and Danielle:

Simon and Danielle are both business owners, based in the East Midlands, who met through mutual business contacts and who share a love of all things business. 

Simon runs Skylight Media – Award-winning experts in Website Design, E-commerce & Marketing running since 2003.

Danielle runs Goldspun Support – a multi-faceted support service for fractional directors and small business owners across the globe, running since 2009.

Since they first met Simon and Danielle have spent a ridiculous amount of time talking about the subjects that interest them – usually over a drink in the pub – and they decided that now was the time to bring these conversations to a wider audience and invite them to join the chat. 

Both Simon and Danielle are successful business owners in their own rights with big plans for the future but will never lose their love of talking all things business… and the pub.

Transcript

Hi, I'm Dani and I'm Si. Welcome to Business in the Brew, a podcast dedicated to anything's business with the occasional cuppa. 

You take a business story, theory, or something we just want to chat about, either the addressing of our own special personality and sense of humor, combined with our experience and knowledge. We're both business graduates and have run our own businesses for many years. We can't wait for 

you to listen. 

Hello. Hello. Right. What do we got? 

Cult brands. There are grown adults, fully grown adult humans, with company logos tattooed on their skin. Are 

you going to give me a list of all the people who do that? Yes. This is 

just a six-page document with names of people who are that stupid. 

So these are brands. These are brands that have have achieved cult status. Yeah, they've basically 

turned a product into a religion. 

Is Apple one of them? 

I mean, yeah. 

Yeah. 

But there are there are more examples. But it's more of a discussion about what turns a product, a brand into that that cult following, where people are that passionate about it, they will tattoo. Like people have Aldi logos and Mercedes logos tattooed on their skin. What the frig? Yeah, no. 

Wow. 

But that is, and and the reason that happens is because those people they feel so connected to a brand that they want to carry it forever, or until they can afford laser removal. Wow! 

Yeah, that's commitment. 

It is. You know, there are people who queue overnight in the rain for an iPhone upgrade. 

Yeah, yeah. No, I get that. But having it tattooed-that's almost-that's-that's almost. I'm booked in for a tat. What am I going to have? Oh, I don't know. I can't find it. Oh, I know. I put Kellogg's on my bun. 

Don't think that's what it's like. 

No, but is it really? Yeah, is it really down to passion for a brand, or is it because someone actually can't think of anything else they want to put on themselves? 

I don't know. Should we stop the episode now? If that cult brands don't exist, it's just they couldn't be asked to come up with anything else. I I think that in some cases, yeah, potentially. But I think there are people out there who are genuinely that passionate about things. 

Yeah, yeah. I can imagine 

it. I mean, I've got Alice in Wonderland quotes 

tattooed. 

Tattooed. So I feel genuinely passionate about Alice in Wonderland quotes and butterflies and stars and phrases in French. I've got a lot of tattoos, but anyway, so I mean that is a very extreme example of dedication to a brand. But as I said, you know there are people who will queue overnight for an iPhone upgrade, beer drinkers will drive 40 miles to a specific tech room and refuse to drink anything else other than that one, that one beer. But they're not, they're not irrational. They're entirely rational. They have a set of values, and that goes deeper than the product itself. They genuinely, it's this product or it's nothing. 

Yeah. 

So we're going to talk about what they are, why some brands inspire that kind of devotion that most companies can only ever dream of. Whether whether you can build it deliberately or whether it's just sort of dumb, dumb luck. 

Interesting. 

Yeah. Okay. So 

it's intentional, or 

well, right? 

Okay, 

so brand loyalty is as old as commerce is, but cult status is different from loyalty. So a loyal customer comes back because you're reliable, or because your product works, or because whatever. A cult, a cult member comes back because you're part of the identity. They feel like they are part of that brand. It is part of their identity, and you are part of theirs. So Kevin Roberts, the former CEO of Satchin Satchi, coined the term love marks in his 2004 book of the same name. So brands that occupy a position in people's lives beyond rational preference, combining high love with high respect. His examples included Apple, Guinness, and Harley Davidson. 

Yeah, yeah. And 

the list of genuine cult brands is actually pretty short. Yeah, that 

achieve that kind of status. Definitely, 100% Yeah, yeah. 

Understanding what they share is instructive, though, because it could. I still think it's very difficult to get to that level of status. But so Harley Davidson, for example, in the early 1980 s, Harley Davidson was in was in crisis because all the Japanese manufacturers, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, were producing motorcycles that were faster, they were more reliable, they were cheaper, and they basically were better engineered by objective product measures. Harley was losing. Badly, so AMF, the American Machine and Foundry, which had owned Harley since 1969, was considering shutting the company down. 

Good grief! 

I know a management buyout in 1981 saved it, and what the new management recognized was what Harley's real asset wasn't its manufacturing capability; it was its mythology. So the American road, the open highway, the freedom, rebellion, independence, and they leaned hard into that mythology rather than trying to match the Japanese on specs. So they literally stopped trading on specifications, started trading on the ethos of the brand, if you like, and a lot of 

legacy. 

Yeah, in 1983 they created the Harley owners group, Hog. 

Oh yeah. 

Oh yeah, a membership club for riders that organize rallies, rides, and events. It was customer community before anyone had invented that phrase. And today, Hog has over a million members worldwide. Harley's customers don't own motorcycles; they belong to something. 

I can see that. And that is such an identity. It's so 

iconic. So you got Apple, 

the 

brand that made technology personal. So apparently, in 1997, Apple came within 90 days of bankruptcy. No, you don't know the stuff, do you? It just you know Microsoft invested 150 million dollars, partly to avoid antitrust scrutiny and partly to keep the competitor alive. And then Steve Jobs returned. The 1984 Super Bowl ad that launched the original Mac was the prototype for everything that followed. It wasn't about the product; it was about you. Are you one of the sheep, or are you someone that thinks differently? Think different, not buy different. 

Yeah. 

So the Mac, the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone. One 

of the look. 

Absolutely. 

Taglines, wasn't it? 

Yeah. And so each one introduced not as a product, but a cultural moment. And he really built community spaces within the stores, not shops, because they're not Apple stores aren't shops, they're about speaking to a person, 100% yeah. So he did it so so differently. The this made me laugh. The Genius Bar was deliberately named to make you feel clever for being there, which is ironic because you're there because you can't do something on your phone. So actually, you're not a genius. But anyway, 

well, you're not talking to a genius. No. 

Well, you're supposed to be. Every element of the experience was engineered to reinforce belonging to a tribe of creative, curious, sophisticated people, and it's done it very, very successfully. So, got another one, Beaver Town. No Beaver Town. 

Oh, I know Beaver Town very well. 

So, Logan Plant, who's the son of Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant? Started home brewing in a barbecue restaurant in Hackney in 2011. The beers were good, but the brand was extraordinary. The Skull artwork, which was created by designer Nick Dwyer, was unlike any other British beer. It was bold, heavy metal, neat, sort of comic esque, cartoony almost. The branding was so strong that before Beaver Town had significant distribution, people were seeking out the merchandise, t-shirts, cans, prints. The Tempest project, their planned mega brewery, attracted huge public interest. And when Heinekun Heinekun required acquired a minority state in 2018, the reaction was fierce because some fans felt genuinely betrayed by Beaver Town. 

Yeah, yeah. And that reaction is 

what tells you everything. 

That was a crossover point for me. 

Absolutely, because you sold shares to a large company, you're you're moving out of cult territory into sellout territory. 

Yeah, yeah. 

So if you look at 

that, was where there was a different. There was a change from it once being craft. 

Yes, 

and now it being part of a much bigger corporate 

machine, yeah. So, what those brands share? So, I've got five things. First of all, they share a clearly defined enemy, which I never considered before, but it's true. So, Apple had IBM and later Microsoft. Harley had the Japanese, which is a very sweeping statement. Early brew dog have mass-produced industrial lager. Cults define themselves partly by what they oppose. So you know, traditional cult would oppose the mass. 

Yeah. 

Second, scarcity and exclusivity, limited releases, membership requirements, geographical restrictions. You can't just have it; you have to earn it or deserve 

it. 

Third, the creation myth. Every cult brand has a foundational story that is almost religiously retold. Steve Jobs in a garage, the Harley buyout. 

Yeah. 

Oh, it's that man again, Matashits in Bangkok. 

Oh my God. Dietrich, 

the guy with Red Bull. Red 

Bull, yeah, 

yeah. Fourth, a visible community. You can see the other members, you know the hog rally, the apple store queue, the craft beer festival. You're not alone in your faith. You are part of this community. And then fifth, a product that genuinely delivers. 

Yeah. 

So cults don't form around mediocre products. The product has to be good enough to justify the belief. 

Yes, yes. But the product 

isn't the only reason for the belief. So can you? Build a cult deliberately. It's 

quite a lesson. Do 

you think you can build a cult deliberately? I mean, there are many cult leaders who would say that yes, you can. Can you build a cult following around a product deliberately? Is my question. 

You have to define that product very carefully, and it starts with one. 

Yes, the and I looked into this and I went back and forth on it. I think you can create the conditions, you can make everything perfect, but you cannot accurately predict human behavior. You cannot create the lightning throughout the coup de fertile. You cannot create that moment when everyone falls in love with something. So even if all of your ducks are lined up in a row, or whatever. It still may not happen, so I don't think you can deliberately create it. But I think you can put yourself in a position with a higher chance of success. 

I think a certain amount of these they've they've they've they've happened because they've been able to exploit a specific period in time, 

yes, 

yeah. Harley had huge legacy and brand awareness. Anyway, 

yes. 

So making making that and making their uniqueness and their already existing community a part of that. 

Yes, it built on what it had rather than having to start from scratch. 

Beaver Town, they were kind of arriving at the time originally when Brewdog was already making a name for itself, and there was room for another. 

Yes, that was yeah, 

and they had similar kind of punk and rock kind of views. Yes, 

when Apple appeared, it was the first time you know it was the first time a personal computer, pretty much had appeared, and then off the back of Steve Jobs, off the back of that, he built off the back of the success of that. Even though there were 90 days from 

yeah 

bankruptcy at one point, yeah, you 

you can you start your build became 

a there is a what is it a crossover moment 

yeah 100% and that is the that's the myth behind it isn't it yeah and at the end of the day you couldn't 

I don't think you could it would be very difficult to do it from scratch you'd have to do it from something from something 

very clever strategic marketing you could so you you can have an enemy develop a product have an enemy, you can do that. The anti-hero, you can create scarcity with limited releases. You know exclusivity. You can invest in community events, online spaces, forums. You can tell your origin story obsessively, and you can make your product genuinely excellent. So all of those things are the right pieces of the puzzle, but you you can't like fake authenticity that underpins it all. You can make all the conditions right, but you can't guarantee everyone's going to fall for it. 

Yeah, 

it's like falling in love. You could tick every single box on my wish list, and it might just not have chemistry, or it might not work. So, yeah, I think to a degree you can manufacture the environment, but you can never manufacture the result. 

Yeah, so nothing, nothing's predictable. Yeah, 

no, so that's why there are so few of them because there isn't a rep. It's not like you can, you know, when you go online and it says you can download my Instagram templates and make yourself $10,000 overnight. It's like that. It's not like that. The cold brands. Yes, taking the make out of those. Yeah, I think customers are very good at detecting performative behavior. 

Absolutely, yeah. They're getting better. 

Yeah, 

they are getting better because they're being educated in it by very poor players. 

That is very true. Yeah, yeah. So there are ones that are that they're getting towards cult, or they had cult and lost it because it's it's not got longevity as you said. They take advantage of a moment in time. So innocent drinks, we've talked about innocent drinks before. They they did they did a lot of stuff at Glastonbury and festivals and various different things. But as soon as they sold out to Coca Cola, 

well they've just merged, haven't they? Yeah, they've just become just part of the they've 

become generic part of the 

landscape of similar people. It's no 

longer the only person doing that, talking in the 

yeah whatever. But also also Beaver Town to a degree has actually suffered from that. Then they're still still successful. Got no doubt they're still successful, but they are now part of Heineken Stable. 

Yes. 

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you are one of many instead of being their their kind of apogee, if you like, apogee-the kind of peak of it-they'll grow as Heineken grows, and they'll be distributed as Heineken distributes. But that initial kind of impact and that that doesn't become cult. 

That just becomes gross. Yeah. 

Yes. Yeah. That that that brand loyalty is a different matter altogether. I think because there's so many choices these days. 

Interestingly, Lego-that's now an adult cult rather than a children's toy. So again, they were close to bankruptcy in 2004. They'd overextended into theme parks, video games, TV shows. They'd pretty much lost sight of the core product, which is the the joy of building, and a dramatic turnaround restored for. Focus on basically the bricks. What they discovered in the process was that there was a massive cult following from adult fans. They're called AFOLs, adult fans of Lego, who were building extraordinarily complex models and sharing them online. So rather than ignoring the soft label use, Lego embraced it, creating adult-targeted sets, the architecture sets, the Saturn Five Rocket Botanical Collection and Day Lego is one of the most valuable toy brands in the world and its adult fan community is a core commercial segment. 

Brilliant! So that's tapping into nostalgia. Have you seen what? 

Well, that's a good question actually. So yes, potentially part of it will be nostalgia. I built Lego when I was younger. I still love building Lego, but the level of complexity and care that will go into a build you do as an adult compared 

to oh like when I was younger I wanted to 

build a castle and have knights and things galloping around now I want to build that really expensive Death Star and have it sat there so I can be proud of it with a little secret brand yeah 

got that brand association 100% I 

trust it I wouldn't buy off brand maybe something 

back then that it gives you now that assignment. There's a 

satisfaction of assignment. 

There's some something going on with corgi toys at the moment. This is proper proper nostalgia. Okay. Kind of tapping into nostalgia almost demand. When I was when I was a kid, I had a few corgi toys. They were little not dinky. They were little cast, cast metal cars. 

Yeah, 

I've got the James Bond Aston Martin. I've got a few others. I've got some some dinky stuff as well. And the what they've done is they they have reproduced using the original moldings, I believe, from the factory, faithfully reproduced almost their entire range of Corgi toys. Who you can buy that original gold colored Aston Martin from Spy Who Love, not Spy Who Loved Me, got a man with a golden oh Goldfinger. That's it. List all of them. Goldfinger. It came out as gold rather than silver, which is in the film. Yeah, but that has been reproduced faithfully with the box and everything. You can actually buy into these. There was the dinky versions with the Thunderbirds, the Thunderbirds Thunderbird Two, and the Rockets, Thunderbird One and Three and Five, and people are buying these up as collectors' pieces, so they've. I remember at the time thinking, "Oh, I wish I could go back in time and go and buy these toys from the toy shop. But now you don't have to go back in time anymore. 

You like scrolling eBay for perfect forward. I remember when my kids were young. Fisher Price bought out a load of nostalgic toys. One of which was it was a record player, and they were these round. I think it was six inch, 

yeah, 

like plastic discs with grooves in, and they play nursery rhymes and things like that. And I bought one of those for my kids, who could not care less about it because it's not technology and it's not advanced. But to me, I was like, this is the most amazing thing ever. Yeah, I don't care if I'm playing row the boat 15 times on a plastic record. Yeah, it's brilliant, and I love stuff like that. And I think there is a place for it, but again, it will come and go. Oh 

yeah, well it will, it will. I mean, it's a momentary kind of tapping in, tapping into nostalgia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

But it's but 

the others are progressive. That's that's what makes them. 

They are and they aren't. I mean, I'm now looking at this. If you look at Lego, for example, bankruptcy in 2004. Now the biggest valuable toy brand in the world. It's only 2026. That's only 22 years. If we have this conversation in 2030, will that be the same? Will we all be bored of Lego and be doing something else? 

Will we also be bored of podcasting, darling? 

We're going to run out of things to talk about. I know that for a fact. We're fed up with each other. That's true. So I think, yeah, I think they have achieved Colt and Harley. 

Yeah, 

seems very enduring. They 

are probably going to endure. 

Apple endures because it keeps evolving. Realistically, Harley Davidson doesn't keep evolving. 

Stays relevant, and that's the thing. It's relevancy, isn't it? 

Yes. Yes, I suppose it's 

it's satisfying the demand from its believers, its followers. But 

again, you can't recreate that. 

No, but you can maintain it. You can keep it going. 

Yes, 

obviously until you go and commit some awful fraud or say 

something to fair. Yeah, and all of a 

sudden everyone did. But what if, like, all of 

your hogs all age out of purchasing? You know, when they all become OAPs and drop dead, are we bringing in new hogs? You know, with Harley, are you constantly having to regenerate an audience? 

Speed on the I assume 

so. 

Yeah, bit like 

Women's Institute 

timeline. 

It ages out. The Women's Institute ages out, which is why they're so desperate to get new, younger women in. Because 

well, they're desperate. 

Yeah, because they'll end up with no members. Because they will all aged out to the point where they've died, and there's no one left to run the Women's Institute because it's not a model that exists in modern society anymore. I think. 

I think Women's Institute members might have a thing or two to. 

I've been to the Women's Institute, 

and did they say anything about that at the time? 

I didn't say that, did I? I went to listen to a man talk about a helicopter. It's very interesting. 

A helicopter? 

Yeah, it was a helicopter pilot. Really good speech. It was really interesting. And then we did some crafting with flowers. It was definitely my place. Anyway, my point was yes, 

yes. 

I think we've decided that there are conditions you can use to create the best possible success of creating a cult brand, but the likelihood of you actually doing it, sorry, it's pretty slim. It's pretty slim. 

And there's a there's a gauntlet to throw down. So I feel about starting like feet. I can cut what you will. Yeah, 

you can put the conditions in, but you can't guarantee you're going to make the sales. It's a hard life. 

Yeah. 

Thank you. Thank you for coming to my TED talk and pole brands. 

Thanks for supporting us by downloading and listening to this episode. 

And a massive thank you also to Dawnie, Emily, Nat, and Lewis, and the BTD Studios for all your expertise in bringing our podcasting dream to reality. 

We'd love it if you commented on this episode, as we'd really like to know what you think and what you might like us to cover in future episodes. 

And we'll see you on the next 

one.