What Makes a Brand Iconic?

Effective ways to make your brand unique and stand out in the marketplace using iconic brand principles

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Erik Messaki
Co-founder and CEO at Outcrowd branding and web design agency

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Naples helped me better understand global economy principles.

Roberto Saviano

This quote comes from a book by a writer who was assassinated by the mafia for revealing its secrets. I don’t intend to take such risks, so I’m going to share some legal ways of making a brand unique, effective, and unsinkable — like the mafia.:)

We know that a brand needs to be special to outperform the competition and stand out in the marketplace. In practice, it’s not always as fun as it sounds. A company comes up with a USP, builds great product features, and orders a special trending design. But as time goes by, the startup gets lost among its peers and stops growing, despite a promising strategy, regular updates, and active marketing efforts. What went wrong?

One of the reasons is misunderstanding of what exactly makes a brand unique, how it works, and how not to lose that uniqueness during the growth and scaling of a startup.

To understand it, we need to look at any iconic brand and see what makes it so. It will serve as an example. There’s a lot we can borrow from these guys and use in our own strategy.

Get ready, because what I’m going to say will shock you.

Uniqueness means being distinct. Creating an iconic brand is like starting a mafia or a cult, minus the criminal aspect.

This isn’t just a humorous simile. An iconic brand has all the characteristics of a mob octopus that holds the world in its tentacles. A strong brand is akin to a religion, a cult, an object of worship, with its own leaders, acolytes, and missionaries that spread ideas and products. The word “religion” means “a bond of faith.” Consumers are bound together by their belief in and loyalty to a brand. And just as every religion is unique and distinct, so is a strong brand unique and distinct from the sea of mediocrity. In any case, brand cultists believe their group to be apart from everyone else and are proud of it.

If you analyze how a cult is organized and what makes it effective and apply these principles to your brand, you will achieve incredible results, even if you have a small company, modest finances, and a non-unique initial product.

So, are you ready to become the godfather of the Brand Mafia? Then let’s go!

The Mafia/Cult Model

Most entrepreneurs usually rely on their current capabilities and never imagine their ideas and products taking over the world. But those who settle for less, get less. Strive to go beyond mundane reality and don’t limit your brand vision in the long run. One day, your brand may be the octopus that takes over the world. This vision must be built into the foundation. For this purpose, the internal ideology of the brand and all strategic steps and processes should be aimed at creating your brand mafia, growing it, and gradually introducing its tentacles into the market.

How does this approach differ from the standard growth and scaling strategy? Here’s how: you are consciously applying cult (or mafia, if you prefer) strategies, minus the illegal stuff. This approach can completely change the way you look at business. You might even reorganize the company, rewrite its development strategy, rethink brand development, positioning, and image.

This means a revolution and a hard reset of the system. But don’t make any steps in this direction without first learning how a mafia or cult works and how their models and principles are applied in marketing.

Few of us are ready to start a revolution — a restyling at most. Maybe a rebranding, if the brand has lost its luster and needs to be repositioned. But turning into a mafia? Thanks, guys, I’ll take a raincheck. We only sell soap, there’s no cult. (That laughter you hear is Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive.)

Still, you can already apply “cultish” principles as additional tools to develop and promote your brand. Once you see that they work, you’ll want to add more.

Uniqueness is about being chosen and distinguished. To become chosen, you need to be worthy. Not just create a worthy image, but live up to it.

To grow the right tree, you need to plant the right seed.

1. The core of a strong brand

Branding doesn’t start with an identity. Branding starts with an idea, a purpose, a strategy, and an organization. It also starts with a team. If the brand is weak and not internally unique (if team members don’t feel like chosen and valued employees or lack motivation and vision for the brand), this will eventually manifest externally.

Branding starts from within.

The word “culture” comes from the word “cult.” If a company decides to postpone the development of its corporate culture until better times, it won’t become an iconic brand or even a good one.

Jesper Kunde’s brilliant book Corporate Religion reveals how an iconic brand is created. Kunde introduces the concept of “corporate religion” as a philosophy that unites a company and its employees around a common set of values, mission, and vision. Both consumers and the company itself become adherents of the “brand cult.”

Here are the salient points Kunde makes in Corporate Religion:

1. Successful brands evoke the same devotion and emotion in consumers as religion does in believers. Brands become part of people’s lives, inspiring trust and a sense of belonging.
2. To create a “corporate religion,” companies need to define their values and mission clearly. These elements must be sincere and integrated into every aspect of the business.
3. Company employees should become “adherents” of the corporate religion, sharing its values and goals. This promotes cohesion and performance.
4. Successful brands are consistent in their messaging and actions. Consistency in values and strategy helps create a strong, understandable brand that is appealing to consumers.
5. Consistency between external marketing communications and internal corporate communications is a must. This creates a unified brand perception both internally and externally.
6. To succeed, a company must strive for a culture of excellence that reflects a commitment to being the best at everything it does, from the product to customer service.

Fostering an internal culture builds and reinforces the core of the brand, making the brand stronger. But being strong isn’t quite enough to become iconic.

The brand needs to become special.

That’s where the “mafia/cult” marketing techniques come into play. These are tools of unification and separation. Strangely enough, some of them unite and divide at the same time.

2. Unification tools

La Cosa Nostra means “Our Cause.” (These guys have a great marketing department.)

1. Motivation

An iconic brand has a powerful motivating concept and communicates it to its followers on a constant basis. Universal and socially important values are involved in the brand concept. Philanthropy, solving social ills, saving nature, providing help and charity. Marketing actively (sometimes aggressively) spreads the brand idea.

2. Problem solving

The mafia takes care of its own, solving all their problems. (Sounds familiar!).

To the cult followers, sacred knowledge and a special path shall be revealed. It will take away their pain and solve all their problems.

A unique brand copies these valuable strategies.

3. Control and hierarchy

Every mob has its own charter and rules. The Sicilian Mafia has a pyramid management structure. The Camorra has a horizontal structure (clans are independent, prone to feuding and competition, but this makes it more stable). Any mafia group uses strict control, unquestioning obedience of the elders, discipline, rewards for the loyal, and punishments for the disloyal.

A strong brand also keeps all processes under strict control. It has a clear structure and hierarchy. It stimulates internal competition, playing on the desire of each team member to reach the next level and increase their standing. Loyalty is encouraged, while disloyalty can be punished (except there’s no bloodshed involved).

4. Initiation and involvement

In the mafia, newbies go through initiation rites and are taught the secrets of the craft. A strong brand actively works with newcomers (offering them attention, involvement, and immersion), instilling in them pride in the company and a sense of being chosen. The company holds regular workshops, meetings, training seminars, etc. A similar approach is used for the target audience.

5. Leader

An iconic brand has its own “preacher.” This is an authority, a charismatic leader who broadcasts the brand’s ideas constantly, like sermons. It’s an expert opinion with an emotional pitch that impassions adherents inside and outside the brand. The brand also employs regular celebrity endorsements.

6. Rituals and attributes

An iconic brand has more than just its own identity. It has its rituals. Its attributes. Its rules. Its prohibitions. Its incentives and rewards. It paradoxically unites and divides at the same time.

3. Separation tools

1. Chosen + Separate = Unique

Cultists believe that their way is the best and they are the elite. So do brand cultists. Working for a corporation is extolled while consuming the brand’s products is proclaimed a privilege.

But being chosen is not just elitism. “The chosen one” works for a purpose, a specific mission. The chosen one is separated from the crowd and raised above it to do something important.

People aren’t inspired by a brand’s special features.

People are inspired by becoming special themselves or doing something unique through the brand.

An iconic brand allows customers to stand out, to achieve more than others, to be better than others. It gives people a desirable image of themselves. Such a brand becomes valuable and unique and stands out on its own.

By making people feel chosen, the brand becomes the people’s choice.

Even if you sell soap or nails, there’s no reason you can’t use an image of a smart homeowner or a successful nail wholesaler in your branding — the image of what your customers want to see themselves as.

2. Being chosen as personal and group identity

A unique brand treats every consumer like a special and important client. In doing so, it emphasizes that the customer is not alone. The brand groups people together and separates them from the rest. The group of adherents is proclaimed to be elite or to have advantages through exposure to the brand’s special products and ideas. Each member of the group believes in the power of these ideas (or the product being offered).

3. Visual uniqueness

Uniqueness is born with an idea, brought to life through visual identity, and then broadcast to the world.

Identity is first and foremost a tool for brand recognition. It creates the face of your company. Design and marketing make this face recognizable, special, and loved.

This tool integrates and distinguishes at the same time. A unique identity is always cohesive and stylistically unified. It is the key to brand recognition and successful brand communications.

An iconic brand’s identity isn’t about shock and awe. It’s about good, professional design. You can commission one that’ll be just as good.

However, you need to realize that visual design is just the outer shell of the idea, which is the essence of the brand. A Christian is awed by the sight of the cross, even though there’s nothing outstanding about its design. The cross acts as a psychological and emotional trigger. Adherents of an iconic brand are awed by the familiar designer squiggle.

The foundation of a unique and recognizable brand is its essence, which marketers and designers make tangible and appealing, turning the brand into a visual magnet and a tool for communicating with users.

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4. Emotional and motivational triggers

Iconic brands use emotions and stories to hook their customers, bring them together through common experiences, and encourage them to share their emotions and impressions.

“But we also do this!” I hear you saying. So where’s the result? The result depends on how well you know your users, and whether you were able to hook them emotionally and mentally so that they keep talking about you. Has your brand become a character in their dialogue and a protagonist in their stories — or is it just a passive observer? Iconic brands weren’t created overnight. They’ve been on the road to success for years, all the while studying and testing their audiences. They have penetrated widely and deeply into social networks and have reached the stage when they can mold public opinion and steer it in the right direction.

So you and I still have a long way to go, and we’ve got our work cut out for us. But the more aware your brand is of the world and the people in it, the more useful it strives to be, and the more aware will the people be of your brand. Real mobsters are masters of awareness! 🙂