Legacy brands are enduring because they successfully create communities of loyal supporters through well-thought-out events and calculated partnerships. Building loyalty requires emotional intelligence, strategic foresight, and cognitive adaptability — critical soft skills marketers must incorporate into campaigns.

Here’s how legacy brands approach community building, learning from those that consistently do it right.

Focusing on Shared Interests Across Generations

Old-school marketing targets demographic segments — a strategy that may no longer work as well as it used to before the digital age. Social media has spawned online communities of like-minded individuals of all ages who love discussing and celebrating mutual interests. Niche groups are close-knit and fiercely loyal to the brands that speak their truth.

Empathy helps contemporary marketers recognize what makes every group tick. Understanding each one’s values lets you determine which communities would welcome your legacy brand to participate in the conversation. Mattel understood this assignment with the Barbie movie.

The film touched on prevailing sensitive issues surrounding gender norms by holding a mirror to society. It grossed nearly $1.5 billion, suggesting that it appealed to multiple generations. The toy company’s purposeful effort to reintroduce the doll to a younger crowd and lend more substance to its previously one-dimensional perception culminated in the film’s box-office success.

Concentrating Resources on Hero Products

Self-awareness is key to recognizing strengths and weaknesses. This quality is crucial for identifying popular offerings that merit a considerable promotional push. These products or services should be front and center, as they generate the most buzz and drive significant revenue. They serve as gateways to the rest of the catalog, hooking consumers in and encouraging them to explore what else a brand offers in future transactions.

Marketers should satisfy people’s interest in these offerings. There should be a concerted effort to saturate online and offline communication channels to spark conversations about them. Hero items should be the subjects of experiential interactions and interactive tools. They should be easily discoverable and inescapable, convincing consumers to try them before anything else. Nike never forgets that footwear keeps its lights on and uses its bread and butter to grow the other slices in its revenue pie chart. The sportswear giant conceptualizes countless events to put its sneakers front and center, from hosting an immersive pop-up to revive legendary football boots as lifestyle-based streetwear to organizing races to launch a new line of running shoes.

Its marketing strategy centers on community engagement, planting the seeds of emotional connection at the grassroots. The brand aims to cultivate a sense of belonging among consumers, hoping supporters become loyal enough to buy garments bearing The Swoosh.

Study your enterprise’s history to identify the bestsellers. Let the data speak for itself, as biases toward certain items may backfire. Pouring marketing on newly launched, untested offerings or historically unpopular but high-profit-margin ones is counterproductive in community building. Instead, stick to the ones that have made a legacy brand a household name to recreate the magic when marketing to new consumers.

---

---

Adapting to Modern Technologies

Businesses with long lifespans adapt to the times well. They welcome change without losing sight of their DNA. Future-forward marketers acknowledge that heritage brands must evolve to remain relevant in dynamic markets. Otherwise, they risk being outshone by challenger brands and losing market share to more agile competition.

Modernization is a tried-and-true engine for evolution. Every technology presents a novel way to reach new audiences, stay connected with loyal customers and create a bigger community.

Innovating doesn’t mean forgetting old tricks. While technology changes consumer behaviors, core human emotions remain constant. Bandai Namco demonstrated this by leveraging modern platforms to celebrate the 45th anniversary of PAC-MAN. As part of a year-long campaign, the company established a variety of new partnerships across different interests, including partnering with Supersocial to bring the franchise to Roblox.

This strategic move introduced the character to a new generation of gamers in their native digital environment. By translating a classic arcade experience into an experience that could be embraced by younger audiences, Bandai Namco successfully bridged a generational gap. Using modern platforms and media opportunities can ensure the company’s product remains relevant without sacrificing the core DNA that made it a household name.

Being Genuine When Switching Gears

Storytelling humanizes companies. It forges emotional connections with target buyers, inspires trust and fosters loyalty, growing your community after every marketing event. The medium may differ at each event, but you can achieve consistency when your stories follow the same underlying narrative.

Successful storytelling requires a mix of soft skills that help brands connect with their audiences:

• Authenticity

• Intercultural communication

• Creativity

• Adaptability

• Cultural awareness

Many heritage brands reinvent themselves to stay relevant and attract new consumers to keep their market share. However, doing an about-face can cause confusion, as brands can’t dramatically change audiences overnight. The risk of chasing away loyal supporters is often greater than the reward of winning over new customers.

Mindful storytelling is essential to introduce a new side of a legacy brand without losing its soul. Old Spice took this gamble in the ’10s and won. It has revamped its image so well that 21st-century consumers understand the depths of its personality with little recollection of what it once was.

This male grooming brand is a paragon of bold masculinity and confidence, yet its ads and events magnetize the opposite sex through humor. Since embracing its quirkiness to appeal to younger audiences, Old Spice has rarely gone out of character and continued to deliver its message of attraction and success through waggish storytelling.

Reaching Out to the Right Content Creators

Internet celebrities can introduce heritage brands to younger audiences, raising their profile to consumers who might be unfamiliar with them. Influencer marketing can generate immediate buzz, organically grow your community and generate sales by tapping niche audiences.

These collaborations are short-term transactional campaigns, so choosing the right content creators to make the most impact in less time matters. Only some online personalities can resonate with your target customers. Critical thinking matters to overcome personal biases, evaluate an influencer’s impact logically and anticipate the probable consequences of partnering with one versus another.

Moreover, intuition is a vital soft skill in decision-making. Gut feeling combines personal values and past experiences, not a magical sense. Listening to your intuition lets you decide against collaborating with the wrong endorser, even if it feels like a perfect fit on paper.

---

Use Apt Soft Skills to Build a Loyal Community

A steadfast community is the legacy of heritage brands that are constantly in touch with consumer sensibilities and market trends. By developing appropriate soft skills, you can plan successful marketing events and choose suitable partners to help your brand cultivate a strong following and continue to stand the test of time.

---