What is advocative marketing?
YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE NOW YOUR MEDIA PLAN: UNPACKING THE MEANING BEHIND ADVOCATIVE MARKETING
When people become the billboard, the next era of cult brands isn't about reach it's about recruitment.
We’ve been thinking a lot about cult brands at Dazed Studio recently. Not because cult brands are particularly new but because the conditions for creating them feel newly relevant. For the last decade, brands have been obsessed with building audiences: followers, reach, impressions, engagement.
As everyone is immersed in their own echo chambers, the internet becomes more fragmented, there is less of a mass audience to reach. Culture now moves through lots of smaller spaces at once: group chats, niche communities, creators, fandoms, and IRL scenes. The next era of marketing might be less about audience building and more about advocacy building.
We’re calling it Advocative Marketing: creating brands that people actively want to represent, recommend and bring into their own worlds. You can see it in the proliferation of merch. Restaurant caps, gallery totes, branded running clubs, beauty bag charms, sports jerseys, niche T-shirts.
People are quite literally turning themselves into media space for the brands and worlds they want to be associated with and arguably, that endorsement is becoming more valuable. In an internet filled with paid content, AI content and increasingly sophisticated advertising, seeing something on someone you actually know, or someone whose taste you trust, carries a different kind of weight. The ambition, then, isn’t simply to acquire more consumers. It’s to create more followers but not just the kind on social media, we're talking about brand loyalists.
THREE SIGNALS
01. PEOPLE ARE BECOMING THE MEDIA
Merch used to be the thing you gave away at an event. Now some of the most culturally interesting brands are treating it as a media channel in its own right. The Erewhon tote, the Palace jacket, the Chateau Marmont cap, the obscure restaurant T-shirt brought home from a holiday: these things work because wearing them communicates something beyond the product itself. They tell other people what you know, where you’ve been and what you’re part of.
OUR READ: The value of merch isn’t impressions, it’s endorsement. If people genuinely want to wear your brand, they are choosing to advertise it for you.
02. WHO WATCHES ADVERTS ANYMORE? MOSAIC MARKETING IS THE NEW NORM*
Culture moves between private chats, feeds, creators, communities, newsletters, events and real life. Something can feel enormous within one world and be almost invisible outside it. That changes how brands build relevance. Being everywhere matters less if nobody cares enough to carry you from one space into another.
OUR READ: In a mosaic media landscape, people become the connective tissue. Advocacy is what allows brands to travel between communities.
*Coined by Eugene Healey, Brand Strategist
03. CULT BRANDS HAVE FOLLOWERS, NOT JUST CONSUMERS
People don’t simply buy into them. They follow them, collect them, talk about them, queue for them, wear them and introduce other people to them. It’s why we’re interested in cult brands again now. Not as a blueprint for manufacturing hype, but as a way of understanding what creates genuine belief and belonging around a brand.
OUR READ: Perhaps the metric brands should be paying more attention to isn’t just how many people bought something. It’s how many would tell somebody else about it without being asked.
DAZED STUDIO DIALOGUES NEXT EVENT, WEDNESDAY SEPT 30th
THE NEXT ERA OF CULT BRANDS
For our next Dazed Studio Dialogues we’re exploring what cult brands can teach us about building brands people actually believe in. Why do some brands inspire devotion while others simply sell products? Do brands now need followers rather than consumers? What creates genuine advocacy? And importantly, does cult status actually translate into commercial success?
We’ll be bringing together people from cult brands, an expert on cults and belief, and Dazed’s Gen Z perspective to unpack what the next era of cult brand building looks like. More soon.
WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW
YILIN, JUNIOR STRATEGIST, CULTURE & INNOVATION DAZED STUDIO ON WHAT MAKES A CULT BRAND
#01 What did you last stand in a queue for and why?
Mimi’s Froyo. Last night I lined up for a froyo with my friend, we all crave it but also it’s a quality time hanging out and just chatting while waiting in line. It’s a sweet treat but also feels healthy and you can personalise it with the toppings you like.
#02 Is taste becoming more valuable than creativity?
No. "Taste" as a word is so overused today, especially now that AI is everywhere and everyone has become obsessed with taste. But taste is so layered; the preferences are shaped by your social surroundings, and choosing a certain taste is an active signal it shows which identities or social groups you want proximity to. Your intention and taste comes through in the thing you consume and create.
#03 What makes a brand worth believing in, name a brand you ‘believe in’ now
Da Wang – As a Chinese person based in New York, I like integration of traditional Chinese elements such as patterns and material into the design. Also the fact it’s a New-York-based brand so I got to see more pop-ups/ events. I also like my friend’s brand, Tangren Worldwide. She's a Chinese queer person, and I want to support her cause more.
THE PROVOCATION: HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD MARKET YOUR BRAND FOR FREE?
We’ve spent years measuring how many people brands can reach. Maybe the more interesting question now is how many people care enough to pass them on.
