"Cult brands polarise people - some love the brand, others don't."

Can consumers become evangelists of the brands they consume? Can they come to believe that there can't possibly be a substitute for a particular brand? Yes, believes Matthew W Ragas, co-author of the recent best selling book, The Power of Cult Branding, which he has written with B.J. Bueno. The book has been widely discussed and appreciated in America and Ragas has been invited to speak at both MIT and Harvard since its release. Ragas will be in India later this month and will address seminars on 'The Phenomenon of Cult Branding' in New Delhi (February 18) and Mumbai (February 21). agencyfaqs! spoke with the Orlando-based writer and marketing consultant to find out what it takes to move a brand to cult status. Excerpts:

Edited Excerpts

My first book, Lessons from the E-Front, came out in the summer of 2001. There is a six month delay at least in publishing land, so by the time it came out, the US economy and tech sector were already in free fall. So, I'm out marketing the book and some media people and radio show hosts are telling me "Why should we take the advice in this book? Some of these companies you interviewed are in trouble.

To make a long story short, I discovered most dotcoms suffer from the "Revolving Door Syndrome". They constantly churn customers. They have weak customer loyalty. Without sustainable repeat sales, a company isn't really running a business; it's running a money pit dressed up like a business! This led me to some deep investigative work into understanding why certain brands commanded such intense customer loyalty. What were they doing right? What was their special mojo? Could their DNA be recreated so to speak and broken down into actionable steps and advice? The answer is yes for the most part.

I won't argue with the fact that Coke, Pepsi and McDonald's are all great recognisable brands. They command super high brand awareness and these examples are all global in nature. But brand awareness is just half the battle. Cult brands don't just have high brand awareness - in fact, mass appeal really isn't their game at all. They're interested in building a customer base that chooses their product or service repeatedly over the competition. In fact, you'll find that cult brands have made such a deep emotional impact and connection with their customers that their followers don't even consider there to be a viable alternative to the cult brand's product or service. That's power!

People might enjoy having a Coke or eating a Big Mac, but the fervor and enthusiasm for these brands from their customers is simply on a lower level than what I find in a true cult brand. Coke, Pepsi and McDonald's are "safe". Cult brands by their very nature usually polarise people - some love the brand, others really don't like it.

There were a variety of brands in the US that fascinated us and have attained cult brand status but are still regional in nature. Others like Southwest Airlines, Krispy Kreme Donuts and Starbucks have already received tons of press the past few years. Individuals as cult brands are an area that particularly fascinated us. There are a variety of US media personalities like Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh that we could have chosen or even David Copperfield, arguably the world's most famous magician.

I would have to say Star Trek. I've never been a particularly big fan of any of the Star Trek TV shows or movies, so I didn't really know a ton about the history of Star Trek before we began our research. What I found out was an incredible story of an individual, Gene Rodennberry, who had the dogged determination and drive to succeed. He dared to be different repeatedly and won. The impact that Star Trek has had on society amazes me. Star Trek has been an inspiration to space programmes worldwide. It has inspired cell phone development. Phrases like "Beam Me Up Scotty" have become commonplace in the English language.

And its popularity has endured for four decades now. The Trekkers I interviewed are fascinating people. It showed me first hand how deep an impact a brand can have on a consumer. Trekkers happily spend tons of money on Star Trek merchandise, movies, conventions, books, you name it, because to them Star Trek is giving them a ton of value back. Star Trek helps give them an identity; it puts them in touch with like minded individuals, and it helps them fulfill their dreams and fantasies. It is the true beauty of a successful cult brand - it throws off tons of reliable cash flow each year for its owner (in this case, Paramount), while its universe of customers doesn't feel taken advantage of at all. In fact, they're thrilled that this brand is helping meet their needs and listen to them!

The followers of cult brands for the most part talk about "their" cult brand like it is a member of their family or a living breathing person sitting right next to them or someone they could call up on the phone. Time after time, I would interview a cult brand customer and they would start using adjectives and terminology to describe their relationship and excitement for this cult brand like the brand was human. This fascinated me to no end. I had never heard someone talk about a brand this way before. These people weren't telling me they like the brand because - let's take Harley - it is a fast motorcycle or that it is reliable but that it made them feel free, alive and better about themselves. Unlike the average brand, emotions and feeling drip from cult brands.

That's like trying to explain the theory of relativity in one sentence and only having 20 seconds to do it in! Okay. Maybe it's not that difficult, but…

By making deep and unique emotional connections with their customers, cult brands are able to turn their followers into strident brand evangelists who exhibit an extremely high degree of customer loyalty and happily spread the word about the product offering.

The benign and destructive cult terminology actually came from a well known US- based cult intervention specialist, Rick Ross… Benign cults help provide feelings of fulfillment and belonging that a person isn't finding anywhere else, but benign cults are very upfront in their missions and goals. Unlike destructive cults, there isn't one central authoritarian figure who is the puppet master, manipulating and hurting his followers. It is a two-way street

Both the cult brand and the customer create and receive value. It is a mutual fair exchange that works for everyone. You'll also find that benign cults aka cult brands are very open and inclusive. They really aren't secretive like destructive cults. They are very accessible to join and their fervent followers are the driving force behind getting new customers.

Our research shows us that cult brands seem to do particularly well in markets that are undergoing massive changes. Most of us know that "change is good"; but we're afraid to embrace it because it frightens us. So what do we do when we find ourselves in a rapid change environment? We run to people, places and things we find familiar and feel comfortable with. We seek out support from individuals, organisations and, in this case, companies (cult brands) that share our belief systems, ideas and values. In other words, brands that understand they are in a rapid change environment and that they have the opportunity to play the role of a "surrogate family", and position themselves in this fashion, are likely to develop a very loyal and passionate customer base. The fragmentation of society is great for such brands.

Like most things in life, it's a combination of planning and luck. The stars aligned to an extent for all of the nine cult brands we studied to take off like they did, but in every case their was at least one brand architect behind the scenes that was "pulling the strings" and guiding the cult brand down its path of success. Very few successful things happen just by accident.

We devoted part of a chapter to a high-level overview of Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Most people only know about Maslow for his Hierarchy, but all of his work is brilliant in my opinion, and holds so much power and potential for marketers. At the top of Maslow's pyramid are the high level needs like Social Interaction, Self Esteem and Self-Fulfillment; he uses the word "Self-Actualization." In short, human beings are more influenced by higher level needs than lower level needs (food, shelter, safety). So if your brand can "sell" to a person on the higher level of the pyramid you have a huge leg up on people. As human beings we can't help but be driven to brands that connect with us on that level. Powerful stuff!

Bottomline, if you can fulfill many of your customers' higher level needs, not only will you have a leg up on the competition, but your customer has no reason to stop supporting your brand (unless of course you screw it up). Hence, you end up with a very loyal, passionate and evangelic customer base.

My "shoestring budget" criterion was simply the entrepreneur inside of me speaking. I wasn't interesting in studying cult brands that were born with a golden spoon in their mouth or received a huge initial investment, because to me that would make the lessons in the book much less valuable. They would potentially seem unattainable. We didn't want that. My co-author BJ Bueno and I have always scraped and clawed when we started a business and we wanted a book with rules on cult branding that could be used by Global 2000 companies, but also by the small family businesses that are trying to carve out and protect its own niche in the world. I can look at a reader of this book right in the eye and tell them, yes, you can do it.

Age is a funny thing when it comes to brands in general. It can be a hindrance or a benefit really. Depends on the situation. On the one hand, brands that have been around for decades generally have a richer heritage hopefully to tap into. If these older brands helped create lots of enjoyable old memories, a marketer of this brand can invoke these old memories again in various ways to help rekindle old emotions and strengthen the relationship between the customer and the brand. On the flip side, a brand's age can also help "box it in", since any brand that's been around for a decent amount of time is going to carry around certain feelings with it, which may not be the message the brand is trying to convey today, but unfortunately the brand has been saddled with. Call it "baggage."

Let' start at the top. Human beings are social animals. We hate being alone. Think of a prisoner in solitary confinement. He wants to be back around the other inmates. We like forming groups and feeling accepted and welcome around like-minded people. While we all like being part of groups, we live in a homogenised society where many things seem the same. We like being part of a group, but the customers of cult brands like feeling unique and different as well. They want to stand apart from the rest of the pack. In other words, cult brands not only help provide them with groups of like-minded people, but these groups are noticeably different and unique from the status quo.

Just because an organisation or brand acts, thinks and looks "different" doesn't mean that it has to be exclusive in how it acts about accepting new members (in this case customers) into the fold. The customers of cult brands like being part of a group that's different and they recognise they're unique and have "found something special". Human nature though, for the most part, when you've found something special is to tell others about it. It's why most people are lousy about keeping secrets. We like to share. If cult brands were truly exclusive they wouldn't be a cult brand and they wouldn't be nearly as valuable from a business standpoint - since the customer evangelism aspect of the process would go away.

When you study cult brands you find the executives at cult brand companies, as well as the customers of these brands, welcome prospective followers of the cult brand with open arms. If I wanted to buy a Beetle, Harley or Mac tomorrow and start meeting other customers of these brands in my area, I guarantee you all of these groups would welcome me with open arms. Stretch your mind for a few seconds and you'll see that cult brands can create "groups that are different" and still act "inclusive" very nicely and effectively.