The world’s mega-brands are no longer owned by corporations. They are social movements. Extinction Rebellion, Pride and BLM are today’s true blockbuster brands in the sense that their iconography is everywhere. They are household names, visually ubiquitous and mythologically massive, taking up imaginary and physical space in the way Nike and Apple once did.
It’s no surprise that commercial brands all want a social purpose – because it’s in social purpose that branding now lives (symbol creation, myth-making, imagination-capturing). Just as social movements once wanted to become more commercial, so commercial movements now want to keep up with their social counterparts. So fascinating to watch the shifting play between social and commercial, public and private.