Separating and dipping a cookie in milk,
Putting a slice of lemon into the neck of a beer bottle
The perfect beer froth by turning the glass 45º
Popcorn, movies, and cola
Instant chocolate in the morning for breakfast
Friday night pizza
The mid-morning break…
No brand is mentioned in the above listing. What we’ve listed are actually routines or consumption habits to which we can easily associate a brand that aren’t completely ritualized.
To really convert them into rituals we would have to insert them into a social process. With a cultural and consumption context we well know that these routines are part of something bigger: they set up rituals. That is when consumption becomes a symbolic action and meanings are produced:
Separate and dip a cookie in milk with your kid after music class to turn a snack into a playful moment.
Putting a slice of lemon into the neck of the bottle as a refreshing aperitif on your house balcony after work.
The perfect beer tilting the glass 45º that your usual waiter serves you in your usual bar
Popcorn, movies, and cola with your couple on Fridays in the evening
Instant chocolate together with a toast with butter and jam on Sunday morning
Friday night pizza with your teenager son who had a bad day
The mid-morning break you are working from home and you have that Kitkat.
There is no Rituals, There is a Ritual System
What we have added in bold is the culture where the ritual is inserted. We already have a social process, a net of relationships where we can foresee the symbol in its context: beliefs, links, state changes, functions and temporal transitions, that not only concern the consumer but also involve different individuals who also take part in his social life. These are more or less relevant moments in people’s daily lives and are a symbolic framework that can contain important meanings.
We do not want to enter into categories and typologies of rituals as this could be overwhelming given that these are endless. What we want to demonstrate is how the understanding of rituals will depend, above all, ondeeply understanding the context: the social framework, the ritual system.
“Typology of rituals can be very broad. Some authors list countless types according to their functions and objectives: purification, blood, funerary, initiation, related to natural phenomena (spring, sowing, harvest, storms…), exorcisms, consecration of people, objects or places, of commemoration, of thanksgiving, of atonement, divination, mercy, apotropaic (preventive protection against dangers), of exaltation, of execution… However, a classification, even if it were exhaustive, would hardly be entirely coherent. The classification criteria are mixed and confused.”
“Ethnography in different societies teaches us that understanding depends more on a good knowledge of the context than on subjection to supposed universal structures”
Velasco Maíllo H.M. Sama Acedo, S, (2019)
This means that depending on the context or ritual system where it is inserted, the same symbolic object can mean several things. In fact, among the attributes of symbols – therefore also of a consumption good that is ritualized – we find polysemy and condensation: it means that the same symbol can contain different meanings.
“Symbols are always polysemic, because as we have seen, their meaning is not determined by an object and its natural characteristics but is established in the production, activation, social recreation of the object itself and its characteristics”
Velasco Maíllo H.M. Sama Acedo, S, (2019)
“The simplest property is condensation: many things and actions represented in a single formation”
Turner, V. (2020)
So symbols have several layers. According to Turner, their meaning can be deduced by collecting three types of data.
- The external form or observable characteristics (shape, color, composition)
- The interpretations that those who use it give to why they use it (values, principles, beliefs, norms)
- Significant contexts created by the observer (meaning and contribution to the social functioning of the group)
The meaning of the symbol in a given context is derived from the study of these layers. Victor Turner himself explains it with the ethnographic example of the mudyi tree or milk tree of the ndembu tribe. A tree that when is cut “sweats” milky white latex. The ndembu people say that it is the tree of “human milk”, “motherhood” and “a mother and her child”. This is what the tree means according to his informants. But Turner warns us that when applying the “third mode of interpretation in contextual analysis” the informants’ statements contradict their behaviors. And it establishes different contexts where the tree changes its meaning: in the framework of a puberty ritual for girls it means the unity of ndembu women, in other contexts of action it symbolizes the novice herself. And in other contexts it is the separation of a daughter who becomes an adult from her mother.
From this theoretical framework – a classic of symbolic anthropology – we can better understand that it is the context what really gives meaning to our symbolic actions.
The act of eating a pizza
Let’s take the example of eating a pizza. When do we eat pizza? Does eating pizza always mean the same thing while being the same object? We know that it is a round piece of bread, with melted cheese and several toppings. You can eat pizza because your child had a bad day and you will be creating a ritual of grief, but if you eat it because there is a Champions League match it will be a ritual of celebration. But beyond product descriptions or typologies of rituals, as we have said, the important thing is to know the meaning of the action of eating pizza at that moment, in that place and with those people. In the first context, the pizza separates us from a bad day and brings us home, our refuge, our safe environment. The second separates us from a productive state and intensifies a moment of leisure. The same consumer object in different contexts has different meanings.
Rituals, an opportunity of differentiation
In the previous example we see one of the keys to the strategic importance that rituals have for brands: differentiation. In the first meaning, in which pizza brings us home, we can see Casa Tarradellas. In the second one, clearly Domino’s / Telepizza. In the first example you make the pizza, in the second one you order it. Change the context, change the ritual, change the meaning.
If rituals have something apart from symbols is differentiation. Rituals differentiate the culture and its groups. Why? because they are a social glue that at the same time that connects us with others differentiates us from others. We produce meanings and produce culture by rituals that connect some of us and separate us from others, symbolically speaking:
“There’s nothing you or I or the Pope or the United Nations could do to stop humans from forming clubs, inventing or elevating meaningful markers of difference, and building fences and corrals that keep one’s group together while keeping the ‘others’ out”.
Martinho-Truswell, Aeon Essays, April 2020.
If we wanted to know, for example, the internal diversity or heterogeneity of Andalusia, we should look for the rituals people do in Cádiz, Seville or Malaga. If we want to know what differentiates a private school from a public school that exists in the same neighborhood, the answer is the rituals.
“Human populations living side-by-side tend to have a lot in common. They adopt the same basic techniques of production, use similar tools and natural resources, live in similar kinds of houses and so on. At the level of practical affairs, there might be little to tell them apart. However, their rituals are a different story altogether”.
Whitehouse, H. Human Rites, 2012, Aeon Essays.
We all buy the same products and the same brands at Mercadona, Carrefour, Día or Lidl. But not all of us have lunch, dinner or take care of our skin in the same way. If we want to know what differentiates the same products that have been purchased in the same place, the answer is not only in what the brand says on TV or on its networks, but in how the product is used/consumed in each home or in each street, in each family or group of friends or in each individual… and here we have the rituals. Singularities and particularities that many brands are ignoring. Rituals can be – indeed they are – new producers of meanings, scalable from the particular to the general, from a home to the general public, from the concrete to the universal.
Through consumption rituals, we transform products into symbols. Without ceasing to be useful for the consumer, it also becomes important, and logically more difficult to replace. For this reason, it is said that “They work as a powerful tool to produce meanings beyond the functional use of the product,” and therefore, generate differentiation.
“Rituals are often described as a set of repeatable behaviours that hold ‘meaning beyond their functional role’. Rituals in the context of consumers and brands are considered ‘the holy grail’ in the advertising world. Creating an association between a product and a person’s habitual behaviour is a powerful tool for brands to harness”.
Dylan, J. How Brands Can Harness the Power of Ritual Consumption, junio de 2022, Square Holes.
When brands are inserted into a ritual system, they are able to construct highly differentiated meanings that are difficult to imitate because they are embedded in people’s beliefs, values, principles, norms, etc. For this reason, it is more difficult to copy a ritual than a product (see the dominance of Retailer Brands). The Fallas are from Valencia the same as uncovering and dipping the cookie as a playful snack time with your kid after school is from Oreo:
“Well-designed and popular brand-specific rituals are virtually impossible for competitors to imitate, no matter how similar or even superior their own products may be. The Twist, Licj and dunk ritual belongs to Oreo and Oreo Alone. For the Foresable future, It can Keep socialising new generations of Children to practice this ritual and become loyal and Life-long consumers of its cookies”.
Utpal Dholakia, citado en Dylan, J. How Brands Can Harness the Power of Ritual Consumption, junio de 2022.
The key for brands, therefore, is to be able to detect which beliefs and symbols are relevant in the ritual consumption systems where their products take part of. So, Oreo, on the supermarket shelf is a cookie. But at snack time it is almost a toy, it is a symbol of fun for parents and children. The belief? We believe that parents should spend time and play together with their children. It is a cultural law with strong roots.
The product and the brand, the brand and the product.
We see how rituals put into practice the symbolic dimension of products. They produce differentiated meanings and values that can be leveraged by a brand. But they do it – and this is very important – without downplaying the importance of the product.
This is perhaps the characteristic that makes them relevant in these times. In some way, there is a balanced symbiosis between brand and product, both matter.
In fact, always in each ritual context there is a polarization of meaning. Victor Turner calls them the ideological pole and the sensory pole of symbols.
“At one pole there is an aggregate of significata that refers to components of the moral and social orders of ndembu society, to principles of social organization […] and to norms and values[…] At the other pole, The significata are usually natural and physiological processes. I will call the first of these ideological pole and the second sensory pole”.
Turner V, (2020)
This is, basically, the structure of a well-built brand. The ritual object is what connects both poles. In the snacks category there are the cookies (sensory pole), and there is a rule that says that parents must play with their children (ideological pole). Oreo connects the two poles.
There is always a tangible and an intangible dimension to a ritual and a ritualized brand/product. But they are two sides of the same coin and both matter equally. Just as to believe in God we need to make it tangible through sacred objects and figures (each religion in its own way). And we wouldn’t be able to believe in the value of lifeless objects if they do not mean something to us. The human being creates, builds or consolidates both dimensions through ritual and also does so when he consumes.
We come from times where the product had somehow disappeared and all the focus of differentiation had been placed on the brand. We all believed in the pole of the intangible as Deus Ex Machina of marketing. We have believed in the brand above its possibilities, forgetting that without the product it is nothing. Today the situation has changed
In the current post-purpose era, the product has become more important, being a tangible reality that we can touch. It is an incontestable truth, perhaps one of the few that remains, and that gives us a feeling of stability during consumption.
“As the world has become more integrated and more volatile, and the problems it faces more paralysing and existential, we’re moving towards a post-experience and post-purpose world, however. At the heart of this lies a deep loss of trust; a loss of trust in what is real and what is true”.
Bruijel, W. The era of post-purpose brands, published at WARC. (2023)
A resurgence of product-focused ads, combined with evolving consumer habits, suggest the “era of brand is over”
Scott Galloway, marketing professor , published at WARC (2023)
Almost three-quarters (72%) of consumers incorporate brands into their rituals at least some of the time – and four in ten (39%) feel more positively toward those brands as a result
WARC, Marketers can tap consumers’ rituals as part of brand-building, (2024)
It has been a long time since brands were built with advertisements or unidirectional messages that establish consensus on what the brand means or does not mean. Now brands are being built again from the product, from where the brand is reinforced, resignified, and settle people’s lives. There is already current data that proves it:
“In the Cannes Creative Effectiveness awards, we saw brands win big by showcasing the product, its distinctiveness, and its role in its customers’ lives. Brands – faced with the dual task of showcasing product superiority and delivering excitement – built original brand experiences with the product at their core and showed up in relevant, highly charged cultural moments where their products could take centre stage”.
WARC,(2024), Creativity with impact: How to put products at the heart of campaigns.
The product is a tangible experience that happens in a present moment, in the here and the now. In times of no future, there is nothing more powerful for a brand than taking advantage of that and ritual is the way to do it. Hence the relevance of the ritual. Hence rituals can save the brand.
SOURCES
- Velasco Maíllo H.M. Sama Acedo, S, (2019): Cuerpo y Espacio, símbolos y metáforas representación y expresividad en las culturas, Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces, Madrid.
- Turner V. (2020) La selva de los símbolos, Siglo XXI, Madrid.
- Martinho-Truswell, A We need highly formal rituals in order to make life more democratic, April, 2020. Retrieval from AeonEssays :https://aeon.co/ideas/we-need-highly-formal-rituals-in-order-to-make-life-more-democratic
- Whitehouse, H. Human Rites, 2012, Retrieval from: Aeon Essays. https://aeon.co/essays/rituals-define-us-in-fathoming-them-we-might-shape-ourselves
- Dylan, J. How Brands Can Harness the Power of Ritual Consumption, june 2022, Square Holes. Retrieval from: https://squareholes.com/blog/2022/06/02/how-brands-can-harness-the-power-of-ritual-consumption/
- Utpal Dholakia, citado en Dylan, J. How Brands Can Harness the Power of Ritual Consumption, junio de 2022, Square Holes. Retrieval from:https://squareholes.com/blog/2022/06/02/how-brands-can-harness-the-power-of-ritual-consumption/
- Bruijel, W. (2023) The era of post-purpose brands, WARC. Retrieval from: https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/the-era-of-post-purpose-brands/en-gb/6260
- Scott Galloway, profesor de Marketing en NYU Stern School of Business, (2023) Retrieval from:https://www.warc.com/content/feed/scott-galloway-tells-cannes-lions-the-era-of-brand-is-over/en-GB/8332
- WARC,(2024), Creativity with impact: How to put products at the heart of campaigns. Retrieval from: https://www.warc.com/content/feed/Creativity_with_impact_How_to_put_products_at_the_heart_of_campaigns/9851?utm_source=daily-email-intro-link&%3butm_medium=email&%3butm_campaign=daily-email-emea-subscribers-20240904&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-email-emea-subscribers-20240904
- WARC (2024), Marketers can tap consumers’ rituals as part of brand-building, Retrieval from: https://www.warc.com/content/feed/marketers-can-tap-consumers-rituals-as-part-of-brand-building/en-GB/9891