What is a Lifestyle Brand?

"Lifestyle brand" is a term that's been thrown around over the past year or so. It's buzzy enough to be repeated everywhere (online, in conversation, on the news, etc), while still remaining vague enough for individuals to embrace their own interpretation of the term. At it's most rudimentary, a "lifestyle brand" is a brand that attempts to embody the characteristics and core values of their largest and most influential customer base. In the past, brands have mostly catered or pandered to their consumers...this idea of becoming one with the consumer and matching their personalities is new. In my opinion, the most interesting thing that came with this brand evolution, is the phenomenon of a brands actually defining its customers even as it attempt to emulate them.  

The term that arose to describe that symbiotic relationship is "consumer self-expression". This refers to the consumer's ability to indicate personality factors solely through their brand choices. To an extent, consumer self-expression has existed since the birth of the modern economy. People have identified with their cars, clothes, and restaurant choices for centuries - using their brand choices to indicate class and socio-economic level. The difference between historic consumer self-expression and modern consumer self-expression is depth. Lifestyle brands today speak volumes of their consumer bases. Everything from socio-economic status, to education,  personality traits, hobbies and friend groups can be deduced from an individual's brand alignments. What we wind up with is a chicken and the egg phenomenon, in which it is unclear whether the consumer informs the brand or the brand informs the consumer.  

For example, take Nike. Nike is a fantastic example of a lifestyle brand. Designed for athletes, Nike began as a shoe company for track runners in 1964. It has since expanded into sports equipment, apparel, and fitness technology. It used to be that consumers chose Nike because they were athletes, now (more often than not) consumers choose Nike because they want to become athletes. By emulating their initial consumer base, Nike has given the rest of us something to aspire to. By choosing to wear a Nike Fuelband, a single consumer can communicate that they live an active, health-conscious life....which leads to further conclusions about their values, hobbies, and lifestyle quality. By attempting to match the intensity, focus and passion of their athlete consumers, Nike became a status symbol for everyone who admires those qualities. The swoop is infamous and "Just Do It" remains an iconic societal tagline. 

Lifestyle brands do not develop overnight. It took Nike decades of trial and error to reach the level of cultural pervasiveness they are at today, but with the ubiquity of social media, the increase in customer awareness and the age old human desire to communicate who we are and our roles in society, lifestyle brands are likely to evolve more quickly and more regularly than they ever have before. 

So that of course begs the question, which lifestyle brands define you?