The Phenomenon of Cult Brands

Cult Brands belong to the world’s most powerful brands and have thus increasingly garnered attention and sparked interest. To date though, there is no common understanding of what a cult brand actually is. As a pioneer in this field, Dimitri Wittwer focused his dissertation on these kinds of brands. In his research he revealed the key characteristics of cult brands, drawing on interdisciplinary literature and both qualitative and quantitative research with more than 5,000 participants ranging from con- sumers to experts in a variety of disciplines. The author empha- sizes the strong relevance of a brand’s cultural change orienta- tion in its evolution to becoming a cult brand and develops two models: the Cult Brand Model focusing on building cult brands and the Cult Brand Status Scale allowing the measurement of a brand’s cult status from a consumer perspective.