The Social Code

Moving brand communities from meaningless to meaningful

Why do two teenage twin sisters sneak out of their parents’ home to join ISIS? How does Ebola spark more terror than Lassa, an equally deadly and fearsome disease? Why have hipsters moved from Berkeley to Brooklyn?

You might not think that you are a brand, or that you buy brands, or that where you live is a brand—that is, until you consider that, like so many other things, brands too have evolved. “Brands” are no longer Mad Men in plaid suits trying to sell you something. Brands are not evil entities trying to trick you. Brands are communities: connected clusters of people who believe in the same things, dislike the same things, act the same way, talk the same language, and use a system of identifiers to signify who they are — to members within their same group and the world at large.

What moves this mass from cult to culture is its ability to transcend from being meaningless to becoming meaningful.

Consider this: If you hold a rock in your hand and show it to someone, it’s just a rock. But if you explain that this is the same rock that was held by the brave, unidentified man standing in front of the tanks…