Every person on earth belongs to several cults.

Calm down. I’m not talking about what you think I’m talking about.

I’ll start at the beginning.

Cult: any group of people who share a devotion to an idea, activity, or identity.

Cults become toxic and dangerous

only when the devotion of the group is

(1.) to a specific individual,

(2.) focused on the destruction of an enemy.

Culture: patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give those activities significance, importance, and meaning.

Cultivation: to till or refine. Seeds are more likely to grow and produce a harvest when you till the soil to soften and refine it.

Cult Brands: Apple, Lululemon, Tesla, Harley Davidson, Starbucks, Nike, and Star Trek are notable examples of brands that have become associated with an idea, activity, or identity.

Cult brands make a lot of money.

Do you want to create a cult brand? I’ve been telling you how to do it for 30 years, but I’ll say it one more time for those of you who are new:

“Win the heart, and the mind will follow. The mind will always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.”

To build a cult brand, all we need to do is abbreviate those earlier definitions and tilt them slightly toward advertising.

Cultivation: to plant the seeds of an ideology by allowing potential customers to perceive and conclude that you believe and value exactly what they believe and value.

Culture: the recurrent activities of a self-selected group.

Cult: a group of people who are strongly attracted to a brand.

The best storytelling ads gently cultivate the mind, loosening the soil of public consciousness so that you might sow the seed-thoughts that will grow into profitable persuasion, causing your brand to be the one people think of immediately – and feel the best about – when they need what you sell.

These seed-thoughts are what my partners and I call brandable chunks, a collection of carefully crafted signature phrases that are unique to your brand. Like all seeds, these brandable chunks must be sown in abundance if you hope for a bountiful harvest.

The seed-thoughts contained in these brandable chunks will germinate – and magnetic connection will occur – when a person perceives that you believe what they believe. When your brand stands for something that people believe in, you have the opportunity to become a cult brand.

When this cultivation and germination of your seed-thoughts has occurred, the next step is for your customer to be introduced to your culture.

Uh-oh. I just heard someone think, “I’m not affected by advertising, so I’m not in a cult of any kind.” Friend, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re a card-carrying member of the “Don’t Label Me” cult. I could tell you several interesting things about your little group, but that would not be a friendly thing to do, so I won’t.

Instead, I will tell you about a cult I joined in 1972.

“Roses for the Living” is the name of the cult my mother started completely by accident. I was there when it happened.

It was 1972. We were struggling financially due to my father having fled the scene three years earlier. My mother had found a job, worked hard, kept a roof over our heads and food in our mouths for three long years before she finally had a few dollars she could spend on herself.

She spent those dollars taking a friend with her on a 2-day trip to Taos, New Mexico.

When I asked her why she did it, she said,

“People will take time off work, buy a plane ticket and fly across the country to lay a dozen roses on the grave of a friend who has died.”

“But their friend...