Cultural innovations require brands to change their understanding of what is considered valuable. For instance, after embracing top European luxury labels like Chanel and Louis Vuitton for nearly two decades, Chinese consumers are progressively gravitating towards endorsing Chinese luxury brands such as Shang Xia as they strive to showcase China's rich heritage to the world. At some point, the vibes simply did not resonate any more with many people to practise yoga in Nike or Adidas sportswear. This created an opportunity for Lululemon to provide high-quality athletic apparel focused on yoga, health, and wellness. Victoria's Secret's image of glamorous, super-slim supermodels proved challenging to alter and ultimately led to its decline. By embracing the body-positivity movement, the brand lost both its conservative and liberal customers who were sceptical of the shift and preferred more body-positive brands like Aerie and ThirdLove.
The key reason that consumers moved to competitors was not the product quality of Chanel, Nike, or Victoria's Secret. The reason can be found on a deeper level. New market entrants succeeded with symbolic innovations instead of technological innovations. Viewing innovations as functional achievements ignores the value of identity – and the critical component of many innovations: “bolstering aspects of consumers’ identity” (Holt 2020: 115). Accordingly, cultural entrepreneurs pursue radical cultural innovations, not products (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001).
An effective way to create cultural innovation is to develop a brand spirit, which is at the deepest level of a company's cultural framework and the source of a big universe of symbolic meaning. While often not formally articulated and sometimes not explicitly perceived by employees and customers, introducing a brand spirit constitutes a pivotal strategic decision that individuals can sense as an organisational atmosphere and specific vibes during interactions with the brand. It provides entrepreneurs with a fast-track route to transforming their brand planning from a blank canvas to a robust brand identity infused with rich cultural meaning.
An effective
