The Business of Aspiration
How Social, Cultural, and Environmental Capital Changes Brands

The Business of Aspiration is about how consumers' shifting status symbols affect business and brand strategy. These changing status symbols, like taste, aesthetic innovation, curation or environmentalism create the modern aspirational economy.

In the traditional economy, consumers signaled their status through collecting commodities, Instagram followers, airline miles, and busy back-to-back schedules. By contrast, in the aspirational economy, consumers increasingly convey status through collecting knowledge, taste, micro-communities, and influence. This new capital changes the way businesses and entire markets operate, and yet the modern aspirational economy is still an under-explored area in business and culture. The Business of Aspiration changes that.

In this book, marketers will find examples, analyses and tools on how brands can successfully grow in the modern aspirational economy. The Business of Aspiration answers questions like, "what is good for my brand long-term?", "how is this business decision going to impact our culture?" or "what are the main objectives of our growth?" Marketers will learn to shift their brand narrative and competitive strategy, to create and distribute new brand symbols, and to ensure that their brand?s products and services create both monetary and social value.

Introduction: The Modern Aspiration Economy 1. To Hack Growth, Brands Have to Hack Culture First 2. Three Models of Social Influence 3. Why Taste Communities are the Future of Marketing 4. Mimicry as Taste: Why Cultural Sameness is a Matter of Social Design 5. The 4Cs: Brand Strategy Meets Aspiration Economy Conclusion: Coronavirus Killed the Modern Aspiration Economy. What Comes Next?

Ana Andjelic is a strategy executive, author of The Business of Aspiration, and named as one of Forbes' World's Most Influential CMOs. She focuses on brand-driven management and growth of modern businesses and works with companies to develop new business models, value architectures and revenue streams.