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- BRAND PLAYBOOK: HOW TO CREATE A CULT FOLLOWING THROUGH BRAND
BRAND PLAYBOOK: HOW TO CREATE A CULT FOLLOWING THROUGH BRAND
6 brands with cult followings & how you can become one...
Niall Ratcliffe
March 30, 2025
In partnership with
Morning!
The sun has finally arrived in England, beer gardens are full, men are already wearing shorts… and I’m sitting inside writing about marketing.
Sounds about right!
Today, I’m breaking down the 5 principles you need to build a cult following (through brand). Because I think “brand” is the most overlooked part of marketing right now.
While everyone obsesses over attribution, it’s so easy to win by simply obsessing over brand - and that’s what I’m going to show today.
Let’s get into it!
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
THE PLAYBOOK
Brand.
It’s an interesting word. One that’s very tough to describe and so easy to ignore. When I first got into the world of marketing & business, I heard a phrase that I think all business owners have heard at some point…
“Sales is the lifeblood of business.”
So instantly, I thought the most important thing to focus on in marketing was:
Driving sales.
Generating leads.
And bringing in new business.
Which isn’t a bad place to start, but the issue is, when you focus your marketing purely on driving demand you miss out on the biggest amplifier your business can have… your brand.
That’s the thing that:
Builds a cult following.
Drives your valuation up.
Helps you become a household name.
Millions of businesses are good at lead gen, but very few get brand right. Yet is so clear when a brand gets it right.
I’m not talking about the Nike’s & Gymsharks of the world either. These were known for many other things before people started talking about their brand. What I’m talking about is the brands that got a seat at the table BECAUSE of their brand.
This week I sifted through hundreds of amazing brands to find 6 core principles that the best challenger brands have.
Here they are (steal them for your company):
Principle 1: Popular Thing + Ignored Niche (Beer Girl)
In school, we’re taught that Business 101 is all about supply and demand. We’re told that if you want to win in business, you have to find a large target audience that wants a certain product - then you make that product.
Conceptually very solid, but in reality? 9 times out of 10 you’ll get drowned out by a billion-dollar company like Amazon.
But in 2025, the way to win is by creating a brand that serves the ignored - and Beer Girl is the prime example of this.
Beer is one of the most saturated markets on the planet and it’s a market that has existed for hundreds of years. Yet for decades, virtually 100% of beer brands have directly targeted men.
Bud Light.
Coors.
Guinness.
Every campaign is built on male humour, sports, and a very specific idea of masculinity.
Even the recent craft beer boom — which promised creativity and disruption — still followed the same formula. It just swapped out rugby lads for beardy dads and edgy design.
It’s not that women don’t drink beer. It’s that beer brands never took them seriously because they didn’t make up the majority of the market. They were ignored - and that was an opportunity Beer Girl jumped on.
They took a very simple product: Beer.
Then build a brand that spoke to an ignored market: Girls.
But this playbook isn’t new, in fact, it’s nearly a hundred years old.
In the 1920s, Albert Lasker did the exact same thing with Lucky Strike cigarettes. At the time, smoking was seen as something only men did. Women were left out entirely.
So Lasker flipped it.
He launched one of the first major ad campaigns aimed at women, reframing cigarettes as a symbol of independence and liberation.
The next minute, women started smoking.
Beer Girl are now doing a very similar thing with beer. They didn’t invent a new type of beer. They didn’t compete on haziness or “notes of citrus.”
They simply built a brand that talked to women. The name. The look. The tone. It’s all loud, proud, and unmistakably made for a different kind of drinker.
They made a whole group of people feel like this was finally made for them.
And that’s how you build a cult.
Principle 2: Change The Feeling
Most sunscreen brands are built around one emotion: fear.
Fear of getting burnt.
Fear of getting cancer.
Fear of ruining your skin.
The marketing is clinical. The bottles are white and boring and they act like they are scientists or a dermatology board.
And that makes sense… on paper.
Because sunscreen is a functional product. It solves a health problem. So the default approach is to make it look safe, trusted and approved.
But Vacation took the exact same product and wrapped it in a completely different emotion — joy.
Their brand is built like a love letter to summer.
The logo looks like it belongs in a beach motel from the 1980s.
The bottles are colourful and nostalgic.
The copy is ridiculous in the best way — describing the scent as “Leisure-Enhancing™” and SPF 30 as a “broad-spectrum holiday.”
Even the fragrance is sold like a perfume with their famous claim, “The World's Best-Smelling Sunscreen.”
They didn’t change the ingredients or boast about how powerful it is. They changed the feeling.
And that’s why people love them.
Because in 2025, people don’t just want products that work. They want products that say something about them. That feels good to use. That fits their personality.
And the result?
People don’t just buy it. They show it off. They post it. They leave it on the side of the sink instead of hiding it in a drawer.
Vacation took a category everyone forgot about — and made it a personality signal.
That’s how you win in a saturated market.
P.S. You should check out their website, it is quite incredible. SEE IT HERE.
Principle 3: Do the Opposite
Right now, the craft beer aisle looks like a design competition that got out of hand.
Neon colours.
Crazy illustrations.
Names like “Hazy Unicorn Juice”.
It feels like every brand in the space is just trying to one-up their competitor with more colour and more craziness.
So Visitor went in the complete opposite direction.
Minimalist style.
Simple typography.
A name that barely says anything at all.
It almost looks unfinished — like a placeholder design, the client never signed off on.
But that’s exactly why it works.
Because when every other beer brand is screaming for attention, the quiet one is the one that makes you stop.
Because while everyone else zigs, the brands that zag always win.
Principle 4: Add Extreme To Simple
Water is possibly the most unmarketable product on Earth.
You can’t own the taste.
There’s no real differentiation.
And no one gets excited about hydration.
Unless you’re Liquid Death.
They took still water — the blandest product in the world — and gave it the branding of a heavy metal energy drink.
Skulls on the can.
A logo that looks like it could be tattooed on a biker’s back.
Campaigns titled “Murder Your Thirst” and “Don’t Be Scared, It’s Just Water.”
It’s over the top. It’s extreme. And it completely works.
Why?
Because they made water fun to talk about. Fun to post. Fun to hold at a party.
And now they’re not just selling hydration — they’re selling identity. People love and scream about Liquid Death. And that’s when you know you’re winning.
Principle 5: Give Them Something to Share
Some brands are made to be used. Coops were made to be shared.
In a world where brands prioritise pretty pictures for the website, too many brands forget the power of physical branding.
But Coops didn’t.
They’re a sauce brand that makes hot fudge, chocolate sauce, and caramel.
It’s not something that most people have on their shopping list, so rather than focusing on shouting about their ingredients or how good it tasted - they just created viral packaging.
Their jars look like they belong in a concept store in Brooklyn, not a kitchen cupboard.
Matte labels.
Drippy chocolate fonts.
Custom lids with fake sauce dripping down it.
The first time you see it, it doesn’t look like food — it looks like design.
And that’s the magic.
Coops became something people wanted to touch, use, and show off — that’s how a simple sauce brand became something far bigger.
Principle 6: Build a Meme, Not Just a Brand
Before you even see the product, the name ‘Hot Girl Pickles’ stops you.
It sounds like a TikTok trend, and it is a TikTok trend. But unlike most viral brands, this isn’t a gimmick. It’s well-executed, smart, and brilliantly targeted.
They’re not trying to be gourmet. Or artisanal. Or award-winning.
They found a trend their audience was already obsessed with — the whole “hot girl” movement…
Hot girl walks.
Hot girl summer.
Hot girl gut health.
Then they paired it with something that their target audience was already talking about constantly: pickles.
Suddenly, something that started as a joke - girls eating pickles straight out of the jar - became an identity.
Because when a product taps directly into something that already exists in culture - and gives people a way to physically own it.
It’s a personality in a jar. You don’t just buy them for the taste. You buy them because it says something about who you are.
Hot Girl Pickles didn’t try to dominate the category. They built their own subculture inside of it.
That’s the magic of meme-first branding.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
1/ Popular Product + Ignored Niche
2/ Change The Feeling
3/ Do the Opposite
4/ Add Extreme To Simple
5/ Give Them Something to Share
6/ Build a Meme, Not Just a Brand
The biggest lesson I took from this: If you want to build a cult brand in 2025, stop trying to be for everyone.
All of the brands I highlighted here exist in saturated categories, yet every one of them won by feeling different.
Hopefully you found this playbook useful, if you did - share it with a friend :)
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
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