Are you myth or utopia?

Look at this picture.

It’s captioned as “An assembly line for the Volkswagen ID.3 electric car”, but a more accurate title would be: “a lesson in 21st century branding”.?

Let me make this apparent.

The picture shows a spacious hall, with impeccably clean wood flooring basking into natural light. Two operatives sort out something under a car hanging above them – like suspended into the air. They are dressed in pristine white – not an oil stain on them. Behind the hall, large glass bays open onto a beautiful forest that reaches the horizon.

Do not read this just as corporate PR, but also as brand advertising (which of course it is, Volkswagen people are smart enough). And compare it to classic, pre-Covid Volkswagen ads. The first that appears on my browser is a 2019 Polo advert. A slice of life that talks of being cool, of intense sensations, of friends, long rides, and discoveries. It’s what advertising has been since the 60’s, when brands learned they could thrive by anchoring themselves in myth. From Coke to Marlboro, marketers borrowed the perfection of shared mythology and used it to power their brands. The mythology of car-powered (or horse-riding) freedom, the mythology of friendship beyond differences or of Christmas happiness…

But “Assembly line for the Volkswagen ID.3 electric car” is not about myth. It’s about utopia. That sounds close, you might think. But myth is anchored in yesterday. Utopia speaks of tomorrow. It unites us in aspiration, not in remembrance. The picture does show an assembly line, but it really describes a world where clean cars have stopped killing nature and the people around us, for good.

One might worry that utopia is as manipulative as myth. And indeed, the fact that this picture illustrates a column penned by George Monbiot in the Guardian to stress the necessity of moving beyond fossil fuel says a lot: it’s essentially a serious, leftwing newspaper offering free advertising to Volkswagen just a few years after the diesel gate – well done VW.

Yet utopia is good. Not for us to feel better at little cost: nostalgia is an even better deal for that. But because by showing a desirable tomorrow, it allows us to embrace change and feel the joy of contributing to it. Utopia, by taking guilt out of behavior shifts, reinvents abundance.

That’s what we need modern brands to do. Show us a plant-food world where life tastes good, if you are BeyondMeat or Oatly, so we shun the steak a bit more often. Show us a desirable electrified world, so we muster the courage to leave diesel behind.

Of course, we need brands to contribute to these utopias, not just making us dream. Without the “stuff” that brings them to life, utopias are pointless illusions. But the stuff is never enough: it’s believing in a tomorrow we love that makes us move.

With this cave-at, utopia building defines well the job of today’s regenerative brands: it’s all about offering beacons into a better world.