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Brands don’t just sell products. They shape behaviour by shaping meaning.
HERESY argues that human behaviour emerges from the interaction of two operating systems: Nature, the biological drives and archetypal patterns we inherit, and Culture, the shared beliefs, social norms, behaviours and meaning we absorb.
The most powerful brands align the two. They take a deep human drive, give it culturally relevant expression, and turn it into something people can believe in, identify with and act through.
That’s when a brand stops being just a product or proposition and starts functioning more like a modern myth—a symbolic system that helps people make sense of who they are, what they value and how they should behave.
If marketing has that kind of power, then it deserves to be taken more seriously.
Not as communications or content, but a powerful system for designing behaviour, shaping culture and making meaning.
That is the heresy.
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“You can tell what’s informing the society by the size of… the tallest building in the place. When you approach a medieval town, the cathedral’s the tallest… When you approach a 17th century city, it’s the political palace… And when you approach a modern city, it’s the office buildings and dwellings that are the tallest… That’s the history of Western civilisation, from the Gothic through the princely periods of the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries to this economic world that we’re in now.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, Episode 1: The Hero’s Adventure hosted by Bill Moyers, 1988
This is a truth so quietly disruptive that most of us missed it.
Brands don’t just sell us things. They shape how we live. They influence how we define success. How we recognise beauty. What we fear. What we value. Who we want to become.
LSKD encourages us to become 1% better every day. Patagonia provokes us to fight for a healthy planet. Pinterest reminds us that the best thing we can find online is a reason to go offline. Nike challenges us to believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything. Disney begs us to understand that the greatest journeys start with a dream. Ecover calls on us to stop using so much laundry detergent.