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6 Mins Read
Key Summary
Ancient traditions like Glastonbury and St. John's Day have survived wars, collapsing empires, technological revolutions, and centuries of change. The question is: why do some communities endure while countless audiences disappear?
Harley-Davidson built a community of more than 1 million members. LEGO recovered from losing nearly $1 million a day. The article explores why their greatest asset wasn't a product, it was a sense of belonging.
According to Bain & Company, increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. The reason may have less to do with marketing and more to do with a distinction many organizations miss: followers seek value, communities seek identity.
From Apple and Airbnb to Patagonia and Nvidia, the same pattern keeps emerging. The strongest organizations don't just attract attention, they make people feel part of something larger than themselves.
On June 24 every year, thousands of people gather around the Tor in Glastonbury. Bonfires are lit. Songs are sung. Rituals dating back centuries are observed. More than 1,500 miles away, communities across Europe celebrate St. John's Day with their own traditions. In Spain, beaches fill with people jumping over fires. In Scandinavia, families gather around midsummer poles. In Puerto Rico, people walk backwards into the ocean at midnight. The rituals vary, but the impulse remains remarkably consistent.
People want to belong to something larger than themselves.
What's remarkable is not that these traditions still exist.
It's that they survived.
Empires disappeared. Monarchies fell. Wars redrew borders. Technologies transformed societies. Yet communities built around identity endured. Long before social media, before brands, and before modern marketing, human beings were creating what marketers today would instantly recognize as communities.
Which raises an interesting question.
Why do some groups endure for centuries while others disappear within years?
The answer has surprisingly little to do with content. Because followers consume content and communities create identity.
Modern organizations often confuse the two.
Executives celebrate follower counts. Brands obsess over impressions and engagement rates, creators optimize for clicks and companies speak endlessly about building audiences..yet history suggests that audiences are fragile, but communities are resilient.
The difference becomes obvious during periods of disruption.
Television audiences change channels, communities preserve traditions, defend identities, but followers seek value.
Communities seek belonging.
This distinction helps explain why Harley-Davidson repeatedly survived crises that should have destroyed the company. By the early 1980s, Japanese competitors were producing better motorcycles at lower prices. Harley's market share had collapsed. Quality issues plagued the company. Bankruptcy seemed plausible. Yet Harley possessed something competitors struggled to replicate. Owners didn't simply buy motorcycles. They joined a tribe. Harley Owners Group, founded in 1983, grew into one of the largest branded communities in the world, eventually surpassing one million members. People tattooed the logo onto their bodies. They attended rallies. They organized rides. They weren't merely customers.
They were participants in a shared identity.
Apple benefited from a similar phenomenon. Steve Jobs never spoke about market share with the same intensity he spoke about values. "Think Different" wasn't a product campaign. It was an identity statement. Buying a Macintosh wasn't simply a technological decision. For many people, it became a declaration about creativity, individuality, and challenging convention.
Brian Chesky understood this instinctively at Airbnb. Hotels sold accommodation. Airbnb sold belonging. "Belong Anywhere" transformed a transactional marketplace into something much more powerful. Hosts weren't simply providers. Guests weren't simply customers. They became part of a story larger than themselves.
The economics of communities are profoundly different from the economics of audiences.
According to Bain & Company, increasing customer retention rates by just 5 percent can increase profits by between 25 and 95 percent. Community-driven companies often enjoy lower acquisition costs, stronger loyalty, and higher lifetime value because identity compounds differently than attention. Attention must constantly be repurchased. Identity reinforces itself.
This is one reason communities frequently outperform organizations during crises.
Consider LEGO. In 2003, the company was losing nearly $1 million per day and faced the possibility of collapse. But LEGO enthusiasts had already formed deeply engaged communities around the world. Adult fans organized conventions, shared designs, and created entire ecosystems around the brand. When LEGO reinvented itself, those communities became amplifiers rather than spectators. Today, LEGO generates more than $9 billion in annual revenue, and much of that resilience stems from relationships that grow bigger than being just “products.”
Leaders face a similar challenge inside organizations.
Most managers attempt to create alignment through communication.
Great leaders create alignment through identity.
Simon Sinek popularized the importance of purpose, but long before "Start With Why" became a bestseller, anthropologists had been documenting the same principle. Human beings organize themselves around shared stories. Nations do it. Religions do it. Families do it. Organizations are no different.
This explains why some cultures remain remarkably strong despite turnover. Southwest Airlines employees often speak about the company as though it were a family. Nvidia engineers describe themselves as missionaries rather than mercenaries. Patagonia customers proudly identify with environmental causes associated with the company. The strongest organizations don't merely distribute information.
They cultivate belonging and belonging changes behavior. People work harder for communities than for audiences. Understand the difference.
They defend communities more fiercely than products.
They forgive communities for mistakes they would never tolerate from strangers.
Maybe this is why ancient festivals continue to survive while countless once-popular forms of entertainment have disappeared. The communities surrounding St. John's Day and Glastonbury traditions were never optimized for engagement.
They were optimized for identity. Modern leaders would do well to remember the distinction. Because audiences are rented. Communities are inherited. Followers may consume what you create. But communities shape who people believe they are.
And history suggests that identities endure far longer than attention ever will.
May the ancient magic of St. John’s Day light up your week, and may the music of Glastonbury feed your soul. Have an unforgettable celebration!
