Selling to tribes

In case you haven’t noticed, Bud Light still isn’t doing terribly well. Sales for the once-favored beer fell 28 percent from June to July, according to an article in Newsweek. What happened? A lot of things. But mostly, in an effort to jump on a cultural bandwagon, the higher-ups at Bud Light forgot a fundamental principle of marketing: Know thy customer. Or, as author Marcus Collins puts it: “Identify your congregation.”

In his unexpectedly timely treatise, For the Culture (PublicAffairs 2023), Collins explains that brands reflect a set of beliefs, both those of the company and, ideally, the customer. He argues that the buying habits of American consumers often have more to do with worldview than the utility of the item. Raised in the evangelical tradition, he utilizes very religious terms like congregation and gospel. Ironically, Collins pointed to the success of Budweiser’s 1999 “Wassup” commercial as an example of how, in days of yore, Anheuser-Busch preached in a way that deeply resonated with its audience. Since he published the book in May, Collins could hardly have seen Bud Light–gate coming.

A former Apple executive and head of strategy at Weiden+Kennedy, Collins has been around the corporate block. He’s also a gifted storyteller, and he includes anecdotes about hot dogs, Beyoncé, Patagonia, and church history, all of which make for an engrossing read.

Toward the latter half of the book, Collins’ political leanings come through, and his soapboxing about “othering” might evoke a yawn or two. One passage about cultural appropriation is particularly grating. White kids on TikTok, he writes, are always stealing dance moves from black users. According to Collins, “This form of ‘Christopher Columbusing’ the practices of marginalized communities is exacerbated by the systemic racism that rewards Whiteness and villainizes Blackness.” He’s also not complimentary of team MAGA.

Even for readers who aren’t interested in implementing his advice, it’s interesting (and somewhat frightening) to learn about how brands capitalize on the human need to fit in with a “tribe” of fellow believers. Americans, as Collins observes, tend to see the things that they buy as an “extension” of who they are. For Christians, this should be troubling.