Savvy marketers at progressive brands appreciate the significance of what we’re trying to accomplish at Cult. Many others don’t. And that’s okay.

We are inventing a new category in the marketing industry. A new species, if you will. Despite our pedigree, Cult is so much more than an ad agency or a digital marketing firm. We provide brands with creative, multi-channel solutions that increase consumer engagement and customer loyalty. No CMO has a greater goal than that.

Brand Affinity Over Brand Awareness

Ad agencies are too often focused on creating awareness. As an engagement agency, we focus on creating affinity. Digital shops focus on technology to solve most problems. We focus on exploiting consumer insights. Our Enlightenment Process helps us and our clients look beyond ads and media channels; our solutions result in new brand value propositions, or new corporate cultures, or new products and services, or new in-store or online experiences, or new campaigns that provide customers with interactions that engage and enroll them in a brand’s idea or values.

Engagement in Action: Target

One of the greatest cult brands of the 21st century is Target. They are coming to Canada this year, and almost every Canadian knows it. But as a cult brand, Target wants more than brand awareness — they want brand affinity. Target needs consumers to care about them. So, Target decided to show Canadians how much Target cares about them.

Target’s engagement strategy manifested in a cross-country bus tour that visited every major metropolitan city in Canada to deliver a truly unique brand experience that made Target even more endearing to Canadian consumers.

This is a great example of engagement in action, and of what progressive brands like Target are doing to build brand affinity and earn cult status among consumers. Consumer engagement not only helps brands like Target stay relevant in an over-crowded retail category, but it also helps them become loved by legions of loyal fans and brand ambassadors who spread what marketers covet most above all else: Positive word-of-mouth.