Random collisions and the case of hierophanic marketing

Did you know that David Bowie co-developed the Verbasizer - a Lyric-Writing Mac App in 90s? He would input different sentences and the software would randomly pick different words such as verbs, nouns from those sentences. These random collisions software will inspiring David Bowie’s lyrics -? a technique that we can all use.

Experiments suggest that the bigger the difference between concepts, the higher the chance of originality. This is certainly the case for Adomas Pūras, a director and co-founder of Black Florence, a Lithuania-based branding agency. ?His recent light bulb moment of Hierophanic Marketing recognised by thought leaders in the world of branding and marketing, including Marty Neumeier.

In this newsletter I asked Adomas to share about this original concept and how his collision happened.

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What is Hierophanic Marketing?

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Adomas: Hierophanic marketing is based on the concept of hierophany which was popularized by historian of archaic religions Mircea Eliade. In his theory, hierophanies (from Greek hiero-, “sacred,” and phainein, “to show”) are manifestations of the sacred, cosmic interventions into our chaotic space.

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Hierophanies can be understood as secret connections between profane existence and sacred existence. For people in ancient pagan cultures, most of the world around them – what we today consider objective reality – was believed to be Chaos, a random, unjust and painful world, a profane realm devoid of meaning. Hierophanies not only made this world tolerable - they made it magical and wonderful. Because through these 'manifestations of the sacred' you could connect to, and participate in, a different kind world (Cosmos) that is supernatural and truly real.

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Anything could be a hierophany: a tree, an animal, a stone, a star, a sexual encounter, or a meal.?Every hierophany results from a “mysterious act – the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world,?in objects that are an integral part of our natural profane world”.?

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Can you remember the moment of your epiphany?

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Adomas: Just before Christmas time I was playing Sid Meier's Civilization VI and wanted to understand better the in-game benefits of building the famous Moai statues from Rapa Nui (Easter Island). This got me into the rabbit hole of googling and reading which ended up with me discovering the great scholar Mircea Eliade and his brilliant concept of hierophanies.

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I've spent weeks reading his books. The one I enjoyed most is his 1957 book The Sacred and the Profane.

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Whatever modern preconceptions you have about spirituality and pagan belief systems, Eliade's ideas are bound to challenge them. Through his work, you really get to understand and even feel how people perceived the world back in those ancient times, and how they shaped their relationship to the surrounding natural environment.

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As I was reading his work and I started to think that his ideas about the remoteness of sky gods and the paradoxical double nature of hierophanies apply very well to our own time and can be used to understand and improve the processes of eco-conscious branding and marketing.

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This was a very special creative moment for me. I always thought of the relationship between product and brand as somehow magical. I would say hierophanic marketing was born in the collision point of my personal passions for branding, sustainability, history of civilizations and humanities scholarship. Funnily enough, my secret passion for gaming also played a part.

?How can we apply the concept of Hierophanic Marketing?

Adomas: I argue that the logic of hierophanies can be creatively applied to our present day challenges. Because just like those ancient people, we too are forced by the present cirmustances to refedine our relationship to the environment. The hierophanic marketing can guide brands in developing effective and impactful sustainable branding/marketing strategies.

Hierophanic marketing can be tentatively defined as a strategy that (a) helps manifest the ‘modern sacred’ principles of sustainability in everyday products and services, and (b) through these manifestations, seeks to empower people to play a more proactive role in creating a sustainable world, while also (c) allowing companies to grow brand value.?

Whether we innovate in marketing or beyond the American record producer Rick Rubin elegantly states: "We are what we consume" and therefore the quality of the content we watch, read, and listen, matters immensely.

Creative D!P questions for you:

HOW CAN YOU TURN EVERYDAY ROUTINE INTO MAGIC?

If you liked this newsletter please share with your network. You can also check D!P? toolkit - a science based practical tool for Daily Innovation Practice and Creative Health. www.creativitylab.co.uk/dip

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