There is one thing that keeps killing off brands faster than anything else.

Cultural Irrelevance. It’s an expensive mistake, and it isn’t making the C-suite priority list often enough.

Yet, it should be on every strategic roadmap. How do you stay culturally relevant in three key areas:

💫 Product relevance - is the product connecting to modern consumers desires, style choices, needs, and lifestyles?

💫 Experience relevance -have we crafted experiences that create positive powerful memories and feelings that stand out above the common fray. Are we creating experiences that put us into the 1% of our market - simply things that our customers cannot get anywhere else?

💫 Community relevance - are we actively cultivating communities that advocate for our products and experiences because we have created a sense of belonging, exclusivity, or desire to be affiliated? Are we creating experiences and associated branding that actively cultivate this community membership and attract new members?

Your brand can die on 1, 2 or all 3 in any industry.

Failing in these areas is simply a brand killer: ask these two brands:

Gucci: Product irrelevance & Community irrelevance. They become so outlandish in their designs that they were the darlings for a minute… right up until consumers decided those designs were dead. Overnight. This strategy was arrogant, and leadership was blinded by extreme profits that they thought would continue forever. They failed to pivot with shifting consumer preference. They alienated their traditional community (who defected to other brands) and bet everything on a fickle fashion-trend-driven group. Also, quality declined at a time when consumers are placing increasing importance in this area.

Under Armour: All three. There was a time when they were the darling of the athletic product world. Now, a Starbuck’s coffee costs more than their stock. Products became bland, zero investment in experiences to captivate and impress consumers, and no investment in a vibrant, modern, and culturally-connected community. They are so uncool that people hide their logo when they have to wear their products.

I could do this same analysis with examples from any industry - healthcare, hospitality, aviation.

In stark contrast, look at the sale of Rhode to ELF cosmetics yesterday. ELF is paying $1B for Rhode ($600M Cash, $200M in Shares, $200M potential earnout on 3-year brand growth). Why? The CEO of ELF cited: Product relevance, Experience relevance, and Community relevance (my summary, not his words) as critical factors in the purchase - and he cited specific examples for each.

If you can’t articulate your own culture relevance strategy in these three areas, you are likely in jeopardy and may not even know it.