How rituals benefit your brand

Habits and rituals can look similar. They’re not, and I’ve focused on the habit side of things for too long. That changed when I read The Ritual Effect by Professor Michael Norton.

Norton says, “One automates, the other animates”. Elaborating that “Habit is the what. It’s something we do. … We effortlessly, even mindlessly, perform routines that take us from point A to point B … A ritual is not just the action but the particular way we enact it — the how. It matters to us not simply that we complete the action but the specific way that we complete it. Rituals are also deeply and inherently emotional.” 1

So habits are routine, by nature, meant to become automatic. While rituals are richly and mindfully particular.

Both are useful when examining how brands accumulate and store value. The right habits protect, and rituals connect. Let’s look at a morning cup of tea to see how mindfully approaching an activity distinguishes it.

How habits and people’s unheroic work reinforce identity. Click here.

In habit, you might plop the tea bag in the first cup you find, add hot water, maybe a splash of milk and call it done.

My morning cup of tea has similar attributes but is a world apart in practice. I boil the kettle and take out my favourite cup, smiling at the memory of the treasured cousin who gave it to me. I open the tea canister and close my eyes to appreciate the malty-leaf smell fully. I measure the right amount of leaves and add the water to the teapot, rotating it five times clockwise, then five counter-clockwise like my nana. I put a little milk in my cup, then wait a few minutes while the tea steeps. Then, after pouring the perfectly brewed tea, I hold the warm cup in both hands and take a few sips, my mind open and ready to think about the day ahead.

In practice, I end up at my desk with a cup of tea. How I ended up there shows where habit and ritual part ways.

Habit is specific, while ritual is expansive and loaded with detail and emotion. The same activity can swing either way based not on what it is but on how you do it and how you feel about it.

Take a minute and ponder something you do regularly — daily, weekly, or even once a year. Now, consider how you do it. What’s happening? Is there a detailed and mindful approach? Do you feel emotionally connected to the activity? Does skipping a step or changing the how make you feel like something is missing? You’re stepping into ritual territory.

Moving the idea away from home life and into organisations, there are fewer places for ritual. Still, it’s possible for individuals, teams, and everyone to find space for them.

I’m not suggesting you have to choose between habits and rituals. They both act as a vote for your identity. Return to the opening idea where “habits automate, and rituals animate”, and choose whichever adds the most value in a given situation.

For example, a weekly team meeting helps keep the project on track. But taking a few minutes to toss a ball around or share wins from the previous week adds a ritual element.

Injecting rituals into how you do things can feel weird and fluffy. After all, there’s a meeting agenda to get through. Do you have time to toss that ball around before you start? Before you answer, consider researchers found that even a random ritual “changed employees’ feelings about their work, their company, and their shared sense of meaning.” 2

But don’t stop at employees. Examine any music fandom to see customer-side rituals on full display. Friendship bracelets, homemade outfits, clapping and stomping, thousands of arms raised, singing in unison. There’s a whole web of animating activity translating into ties that bind.

When everything you do either adds or erodes value stored in the brand, ritual’s distinctive nature is an opportunity to invest in the add side, make you even more you, and connect people to what matters.

So, if the value stored in your brand is running low. Before you reach for marketing 101 checklist items, more people programs or yet another survey. Try putting rituals to work. Transform how you do things and turn the ordinary into something more extraordinary.

Thanks for reading.

1. The Ritual Effect by Professor Michael Norton, p22
2. The Ritual Effect by Professor Michael Norton, p180

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