"Cult" brands can only be developed over time, by breeding hardcore followers who identify with a brand's unique appeal.
These brands create their own cultures, and then a niche group of loyal customers emerges.
Those customers spread the gospel and recruit more followers. A "cult" of followers is a powerful thing for a brand to have.
But these cults aren't indestructible.
This week, Lululemon announced that it was pulling its black luon yoga pants from stores because they were too sheer, and some of the company's most fanatical followers turned on their beloved brand and its CEO, Christine Day.
"Day has ruined everything special about lululemon. The bullet proof quality, the fit, the femininity, the lululemoness of the product,"wrote blogger Carolyn Beauchesne, the "Lulu Addict."
Still, Lululemon and a host of other brands continue to spawn cults.
Lululemon
Lululemon, creators of the preferred spandex of yoga enthusiasts and "cool moms" everywhere, laid the ground for its iconic lifestyle brand in Vancouver.
Its first store was designed to be a hub devoted to "healthy living" where people could discuss their athletic endeavors and holistic practices, but ended up being too busy to do anything but sell its products.
Today, in addition to selling $98 yoga pants, Lululemon hosts yoga classes and designates store ambassadors who "embody the Lululemon lifestyle" (one question on the ambassador application asks "how does the lululemon manifesto speak to you?")
Wegmans
Wegmans, the regional supermarket chain, is a 90+ year-old family business that has been called "the most family-friendly supermarket in America." It consistently ranks high in customer satisfaction and has a rabid base of consumers across the mid-Atlantic.
On its website, Wegmans writes that in 2003, almost 5,800 loyal customers wrote "love letters" to the company, with almost half of the letters including pleas to build supermarkets in their communities. One letter included rewritten lyrics to "Yesterday" by the Beatles:
Yesterday,
A Wegmans store, it seemed so far away.
But a new one opened in Dulles today.
Now I will drive
Towards Wegmans' way.
Wegmans mania reached a new high when a group of musical theatre students in Massachusetts created an entire musical based on the brand. They rewrote popular Broadway songs in praise of the store.
Linux
In the 1990s, Linux was the operating system that stuck with computer engineers. Early in the decade, they all used UNIX until 21-year-old college kid Linus Torvalds came up with Linux, touting it as an alternative.
What sets Linux apart from most cult brands is that not only did it breed evangelists, but it allowed those evangelists to directly affect the product and brand because it's open source.
It attracted much of the programming community, and as a collective, they created Tux the penguin, which has become quite an icon.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider