The new status symbol isn't a logo
Updated: 3 days ago
Every Saturday morning, my local park fills up with a few hundred people running 5k before 9am, and almost none of them are wearing a plain t-shirt.
They're wearing a running club vest. A finisher's tee from a half marathon two years ago that's clearly stayed in weekly rotation rather than being folded into a drawer with the medal. Or the parkrun merch itself.
At some parkruns (Battersea Park I am looking at you), there will be a much higher ratio of branded kit: think Lululemon, Sweaty Betty, Represent 247.
But the large majority of parkruners aren't wearing anything expensive. Or even really flattering, because running kit rarely is.
Wherever you are, this unofficial uniform is doing a job: it's telling everyone else at that park something about who you are and what you've done, without you having to say a word.
This is the whole shift that's happening in status right now.
Status stopped being about what you own
88% of affluent people surveyed (by Team One 2025 research) said their sense of personal success now comes from what they know, what they've done and where they've been, rather than what they've bought. 94% said status is having rare experiences, not rare objects.
That's the top end of the market redefining status away from ownership entirely. But it doesn't stay at the top end.
Attentive's 2025 Consumer Trends Report, based on 3,300 shoppers, found Gen Z and Millennial customers are looking for brands that feel like something they're part of, rather than just something they buy from. Sprout Social's research on brand connection similarly found that 64% of consumers say their loyalty to a brand increases specifically when they feel connected to it, and over a third say they're actively looking for communities they can belong to.
This is big news for brands at every end of the luxury scale. Customers are no longer simply deciding whether to buy from you; they're deciding whether they want to be part of whatever you are.
And if your brand is just a fancy logo, a nice font, and faster delivery of an item they can get elsewhere, you've already lost the bit that keeps them coming back.
Being everywhere isn't the same as being someone's world
The obvious first response is to get multichannel. And that is the response you should've had 5 to 10 years ago.
Already, 73% of customers use more than one channel before they buy, and omnichannel shoppers are roughly three times more loyal than single-channel or digital-only buyers (source here). Being on every platform clearly works better than being on one, but we already knew that.
Most brands are now across multiple platforms and subsequently think they've nailed modern shopping habits. Yet being present in more rooms isn't the same as being someone's world.
Multichannel has become a distribution strategy dressed up as a relationship, and the two things get graded on completely different scales.
Being across five different places still gets you seen, but once you have a customer's attention, why would they want to stay, and why would they want to come back next week rather than just next time they need what you sell?
That's the gap between omnichannel presence and what I'd call experience-led omnichannel. One is about coverage. The other is about whether the same world shows up, recognisably, in every single one of those rooms, and whether the customer has an actual role to play in it once they're there.
Let me explain this better with examples. Which brands are doing this properly right now?
Porsche sells you more than a car
When I lived in London, my friend lived in Wimbledon, and every time I got off the train to walk to their flat, I walked past a Porsche Taycan parked on the street, and have always since claimed it's my dream car:
I don't know much about cars, but part of the appeal of this car (besides the aesthetics) is the feeling of it being a Porsche. What being a Porsche owner represents.
Porsche's customer, by definition, could buy almost any car. So the brand stopped competing on the car alone and started competing on access to make sure they're selling this feeling and the status, as well as the car.
The Porsche Club of America now has over 150,000 members, making it the largest single-marque car club in the world. Porsche's GT Circle is a members-only network for GT owners specifically, layering exclusive events and content on top of an already exclusive purchase. Its Experience Centres in Atlanta and Los Angeles host driving programmes, Cars and Coffee mornings, and private events for up to 1,000 guests, and the Los Angeles site alone has recently surpassed 1 million visitors.
They aren't just selling the 911. They're selling the proof that you're one of the 150,000 who get invited to the thing other people don't. Porsche moved it to membership that builds far more loyalty than just a good car.
Rapha is building a cycling world
Rapha's customer is a much smaller budget than Porsche's, and the brand still built essentially the same structure.
I first learned about them through my boyfriend, who is into cycling, and who went into a lot of detail about cycling brands before he bought his updated bike last year.
In Rapha's case, the Rapha Cycling Club runs 29 chapters out of 21 clubhouses in cycling cities worldwide, each one part retail space, part café, part event venue. Over 400 volunteer ride leaders take nearly 1,000 members out on rides every week across more than 70 locations, and an app ties the whole thing together for anyone not near a clubhouse that week.
What makes it a world rather than just a loyalty scheme is that the identity doesn't shift depending on where you meet it. The kit in the clubhouse window is the kit on the group ride is the kit in the app. Whether you're a member logging into a leaderboard from your sofa or drinking a flat white at the actual clubhouse, it's unmistakably the same thing.
If you own a Rapha bike (or even just the still-expensive kit), they make you feel like you've joined a world and a like-minded community through them, rather than just being a brand that's taken your money.
Lululemon offers a community
It's easy to think that world-building is only a conversation from the last 12 months and is only relevant for luxury brands. But going back a few years to when I lived in London, I bought my first Lululemon leggings and vest when I wanted to attend a free, 200-person yoga-in-the-park event with my friends.
From what I remember, they didn't explicitly say you had to come in Lululemon, but I wanted to feel like part of it enough that I bought something so I could join their free event. This is the sort of thing they do frequently: hosting free or exclusive events to their 'community', to form that two-way relationship with their customers.
Alongside this, their Ambassador Programme recruits community leaders, not just yoga teachers, but chefs, entrepreneurs and run coaches, and puts them at the centre of local stores. Its Sweat Collective gives working fitness professionals a discount and early event access in exchange for representing the brand in their own classes and clubs. Its stores run free weekly run clubs and yoga sessions, most led by people from the local community rather than head office. Their customers build their community on their behalf.
None of these are just offering discounts for loyalty.
It's easy to know which brands are building beyond their logo.
Take a look around your local parkrun (or any community event if running isn't your thing), and you'll see which brands have won.
People buy the parkrun merch to show they're part of that community. They wear their London Marathon finisher t-shirts to show they're the sort of person who's managed to train for and complete that huge event. Or maybe they wear their Lululemon leggings to signal that they care about wellness and fashion, and that they're part of the Lululemon community.
All at one of the best examples of a brand winning with experience-led marketing: the parkrun itself.
There are thousands of parkruns across the globe, but you'll always get the same experience no matter which one you show up to. Like Porsche's monthly Cars and Coffee or Rapha's weekly group rides, the brand is offering an invitation that can become part of your routine and your identity.
So what do you need to do?
Build a brand that's worth wearing, through an experience that's worth coming to, and you'll never need to buy the reach again.
