Art, Not Marketing is the Driver of Brand Building in 2025
Let’s start this piece with a simple exercise. Close your eyes and picture a toothpaste.
Ready? Go.
If I had to guess, you probably pictured something resembling Colgate.
Maybe not the exact brand, but some likeness of its color, shape, or packaging must have crept into your mind.
Obviously this isn’t a coincidence.
It’s the result of decades of brand dominance, where legacy names haven’t just captured market share — they’ve hijacked our perception of entire product categories.
Adhesive Bandage? Band-Aid
Soft drink? Coca-Cola
Photocopy? Zerox
Magic Marker? Sharpie
Naturally, with such dominance, in the 20th century, challenger brands had no option but to adopt a fast follower approach to gain any meaningful market share.
If you can’t beat the best, atleast start looking like the best.
But in 2025, the rules have changed.
Consumerism has evolved from functionality to a representation of personality. The products you use are now used as a yardstick to judge your taste, personality, and, in some cases, even political affiliations (mixed feelings about that one).
So even though legacy brands have retained their genericization, consumers no longer make buying decisions purely based on function or price.
Consumers are buying into your brand’s story.
But most of them are failing to narrate an interesting one.
Because they’re relying on data-driven marketers while the answer, quite ironically, lies in the last place any hardcore capitalist would consider:
Art.
Branding and Art: A Relationship as Old as Commerce
Before branding became a corporate science, it was quite literally an art form.
In the Renaissance era, wealthy patrons like the Medici family didn’t fund artists purely for their artistic indulgence; they did it for power, influence, and legacy.
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus — weren’t just artistic masterpieces; they were brand-building tools for those who commissioned them. (A far cry from the cringe LinkedIn posts that pass off as personal branding today.)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s illustrated posters didn’t just sell cabarets and absinthe; they crafted culture. Even the French champagne houses borrowed from artistic movements to infuse luxury into their identity.
So contrary to popular belief, commerce and art always had a symbiotic relationship.
But then came the Industrial Revolution.
Mass production demanded a shift to mass marketing, and artistry took a backseat. Handcrafted uniqueness was replaced by uniformity and scalability. By the mid-20th century, branding morphed into marketing, and marketing morphed into a numbers game.
And with this pivot, soulless terms like A/B testing, psychological triggers, CRO, ICP creation, market segmentation, TAM, and TOMU took the centre stage.
Yet, even in the golden age of “scientific” advertising, the brands that thrived never abandoned art.
Just consider the Absolut Vodka campaign from the 1980s.
Instead of highlighting product features, Absolut partnered with artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat to turn a simple bottle into a cultural icon.
Or Coca-Cola, a brand deeply intertwined with American culture, famously leaned into the pop art aesthetic, making its red-and-white color palette and bold typography a symbol of pop culture itself.
Or Chanel, working with Salvador Dalí to turn their perfume bottle into an art piece that embodied Coco Chanel’s avant-garde approach to fashion.
These early campaigns proved a fundamental truth: when a brand aligns itself with art, it transcends mere commerce and becomes something greater — a movement.
So in the remainder of this piece, I am going to walk you through the exact blueprint you can use to integrate art into your brand from day one.
Invest in Brand Identity Like an Artist, Not an Analyst
Most emerging brands make the mistake of treating branding as a secondary concern — something to be patched together once the product is developed.
In a world where consumers buy stories before they buy products, branding is your actual product.
Most future-proofed brands invest in their brand strategy and identity with — people who understand storytelling, symbolism, and cultural nuance.
Take Jacquemus, the French fashion label that went from an indie upstart to a global phenomenon in a decade. It didn’t do so through ad spend alone. Founder Simon Porte Jacquemus treated the brand as an artistic extension of his personal world — rooted in Provencal nostalgia, surrealism, and a deep understanding of visual storytelling.
The result? A brand that doesn’t need a logo to be recognized.
Branding, at its core, is just the foundation of your brand’s world-building.
The more intentional you are in the early stages — through defined communication guidelines, iconic logomarks, typography, colors, iconography, and tonality — the easier it becomes to carve out a cultural niche that transcends bounded product categories.
Start Working With Artists, Not Just Influencers
Influencer marketing might give you reach and direct sales, but artistic collaborations give you reverence.
As I mentioned before, legacy brands cemented their position as a category leader through such partnerships.
Now I’m under no illusions that an emerging brand can afford to completely deviate from direct growth-driving activities.
But it is imperative to set aside some percentage of your marketing budget to go beyond transactional endorsements and towards co-creation.
Partner with up-and-coming illustrators, musicians, digital artists, or fashion designers to inject authenticity into a brand while giving artists a platform beyond galleries and museums.
“The best marketing feels like art people want to be a part of.” — Virgil Abloh
But remember, don’t just commission; collaborate.
Give artists their creative control and ask them to build on top of your brand’s existing world with their own compelling narrative.
When you start a venture, you’re shaping it through your own limited perception. By inviting artists to contribute without creative restraints, you get the unique opportunity to discover new perspectives, audiences, and narratives for your brand.
Build an Authentic Community, Not a Customer Base
Most brands build audiences. The best ones build movements.
The difference is simple.
Audiences engage; communities participate.
Today’s most successful brands create spaces where customers feel like insiders — whether it’s Glossier leveraging customer-generated content to shape its aesthetic or Aime Leon Dore making every collection feel like a personal invitation into New York’s creative underground.
For new brands, the lesson is simple: you can’t manufacture authenticity. But you can cultivate it by prioritizing shared values over virality:
- Create offline and digital experiences that deepen connection — artist pop-ups, live design sessions, immersive brand activations.
- Build editorial storytelling around your brand ethos — manifestos, behind-the-scenes art direction, brand mythologies.
- Spotlight your community as co-creators, not just consumers — limited drops featuring artwork from engaged customers, open calls for creative interpretations of your product, the list of ideas is limitless.
Don’t Just Sell a Product. Sell a Subculture.
The final — and most ambitious — step? Transcend branding and become a cultural shorthand.
Nike is more than a sneaker company. It’s an ideology.
Apple is more than a tech brand. It’s a belief system.
Supreme is more than streetwear. It’s an underground economy.
None of this happens overnight, but the blueprint is clear: art first, commerce second.
Emerging brands that integrate artistic thinking from day one — through visual storytelling, cultural alignment, and deep community-building — won’t just compete. They’ll redefine entire industries.
Because in 2025, brands that borrow from artists won’t just sell better. They’ll matter more.
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