Summary:
Who this article is for:
Small business owners, marketers, and brand leaders who want customers to feel something before they ever look at the price tag.
Key takeaways:
- Lifestyle branding sells an identity or a way of life alongside the actual product, not instead of it.
- Maverik, a gas station chain, turns a fill-up into part of a customer’s identity through imagery, staff titles, store design, and a loyalty program built around adventure.
- Emotionally connected customers carry 306% higher lifetime value than customers who are merely satisfied, according to Harvard Business Review research on customer emotions.
- You do not need a national ad budget to use aspirational branding. You need a clear, specific picture of who your customer wants to become.
- Brand positioning built around identity outlasts brand positioning built around price, because price can always be undercut by a competitor.
What’s inside:
- What lifestyle branding actually means, and how it is different from a logo refresh
- The real story behind this post: what happened when I stopped for gas in Fillmore, Utah
- Why aspirational branding works on a psychological level, backed by research
- Lifestyle branding examples from Maverik, Patagonia, Red Bull, and Jeep
- A practical framework for applying this to a small or mid-sized business
- An FAQ section covering whether this works for “boring” products, and how to avoid it feeling fake
I stopped at a Maverik gas station in Fillmore, Utah a few days ago, about halfway through the drive from St. George back up to Salt Lake. Fillmore is not a big place. I think most people who live in Utah couldn’t point to it on a map. But this Maverik had well over 200 people moving through it on a Sunday afternoon, and I sat at the pump longer than I wanted to because every lane was full.
Once I got inside, I understood why. This is lifestyle branding working exactly as it’s designed to work.
There was a photo mounted right at the pump of someone riding a jet ski across open water. I do not own a jet ski. I do not go jet skiing on a normal weekend, or most weekends at all. But standing there looking at that image, something in me wanted to be the kind of person who does. That reaction is not an accident, and it is not really about jet skis. It is a brand strategy, and it’s one any business owner can learn from, whether you sell fuel, furniture, or financial planning.
What Is Lifestyle Branding, Really?
A lifestyle brand is a company that sells an identity or a way of living alongside its product, not instead of it. Lifestyle branding is a strategy where a company sells an identity, a set of values, or a way of life alongside its actual product, not just the product on its own. The item you buy becomes a supporting character in a bigger story about who you are, or who you’re trying to become.
A traditional brand answers the question “what do you sell.” A lifestyle brand answers a different question: “who do I become when I buy this.” Patagonia isn’t only selling jackets. Red Bull isn’t only selling a can of caffeine and sugar. And Maverik, it turns out, isn’t only selling gas.
This distinction matters because purchase decisions are rarely as rational as we’d like to think. People respond to the emotional connection to a product or service well before they respond to a features list or a price comparison. That’s true for a $2,000 mattress and it’s apparently true for an $18 fill-up in Fillmore, Utah.
The Maverik Effect: How a Gas Station Became a Destination
Maverik’s actual tagline is “Adventure’s First Stop.” That’s not a slogan they use occasionally on a billboard. According to Brad Call, the company’s VP of Marketing, “everything for public consumption must go through that lens,” meaning point-of-sale signage, cups, uniforms, and advertising all carry the same adventure theme. Employees at Maverik locations are called “adventure guides,” not cashiers or clerks. The stores themselves lean into it with colorful murals, themed sections with names like “Bodacious Bean” for the coffee station and “Big Moon” for the restrooms, and gear walls stocked with camping and road-trip supplies next to the usual snacks and fountain drinks.
None of that is subtle. It doesn’t need to be. Maverik has grown from a regional chain into a company that now spans well over a dozen western states, and its Adventure Club loyalty program has attracted hundreds of thousands of active members who earn rewards built around travel and outdoor activity rather than generic points-for-dollars.
When I walked into that Fillmore store, nobody looked like they were “just getting gas.” People were loading up on snacks, drinks, and pizza the way you would before a road trip, even if the actual trip was a 45-minute drive home. The store had convinced an entire building full of strangers that they were provisioning for an adventure, whether or not one was actually planned.
Why the Jet Ski Photo Worked on Me
I’m not an avid jet skier. If anything, I’m a person who aspires to be more adventurous than my average week actually allows. Maverik’s imagery isn’t selling to who I am on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s selling to who I want to be on a Saturday. That gap between a customer’s current self and their aspirational self is exactly where lifestyle branding, and its closely related cousin aspirational branding, does its best work. It’s the same reason a supplement company puts a marathon finisher on the label instead of someone sitting on a couch.
Why Aspirational Branding Works: Consumer Psychology Behind the Jet Ski
This isn’t just a hunch. Researchers Scott Magids, Alan Zorfas, and Daniel Leemon published a widely cited study in Harvard Business Review that measured what happens when a brand builds real emotional connection with a customer instead of just satisfaction. The numbers are hard to argue with.
Customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand carry 306% higher lifetime value than customers who report being merely satisfied. They stick around for an average of 5.1 years, compared to 3.4 years for satisfied-but-not-connected customers. And they recommend the brand to other people at a rate of 71%, versus 45% for satisfied customers. That gap compounds over years of repeat business and referrals, which is a lot more valuable than a single transaction at the pump.
Aspirational branding taps into three things people already want: identity, belonging, and forward motion. A jet ski photo at a gas pump tells a very specific, very fast story: people who fill up here are the kind of people who have somewhere adventurous to be. Buying gas becomes a small, cheap way to participate in that identity, even for someone who has never touched a jet ski.
Successful Lifestyle Brands: Examples Beyond the Gas Pump
Maverik isn’t operating in isolation. A handful of well-known brands use the exact same mechanism, just with different subject matter.
- Patagonia built its entire identity around environmental responsibility rather than outdoor gear specs. Its famous stance, built into everything from product design to its “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad campaign, tells customers they’re joining a cause, not just buying a fleece.
- Red Bull sells an energy drink, but its marketing operates like an action sports media company. Between Red Bull Media House, its own athletes, and events like Red Bull Rampage, the brand sells extreme lifestyle first and the product almost as an afterthought.
- Jeep leans on off-road freedom and a sense of community, reinforced by things like the “Jeep Wave,” an informal tradition where Jeep drivers wave at each other on the road. You’re not just buying a vehicle, you’re joining an unofficial club.
These are useful lifestyle brand examples because none of them are subtle, and none of them require a Fortune 500 budget to understand the underlying logic. What they require is clarity about which identity the brand is selling.
Brand Positioning Examples: Lifestyle Branding, Brand Loyalty vs. Everything Else
It helps to compare lifestyle branding against the two other common ways businesses position themselves: features and price.
A feature-based competitor to Maverik would advertise pump speed, fuel prices, or restroom cleanliness. All of those things matter, but none of them make someone drive an extra ten minutes to stop there. A price-based competitor competes purely on being a few cents cheaper per gallon, which is a race to the bottom that ends the moment a competitor drops their price lower.
Maverik instead positions itself around identity: you’re not choosing a fuel stop, you’re choosing whether you see yourself as the adventurous type. That’s a much harder position to compete against, because a rival can always match your price, but they can’t easily take over the identity you’ve already claimed with your customers.
This same comparison plays out constantly. A generic outdoor retailer competes on inventory and price. Patagonia competes on values. A standard auto shop competes on hourly rate. A shop that positions itself around trust and craftsmanship competes on identity, and identity is much stickier.
How to Build Aspirational, Lifestyle-Driven Branding for Your Business
You don’t need Maverik’s ad budget to apply this. You need a clear framework and the discipline to stay consistent.
- Define the identity your customer wants, not just the problem you solve. Most businesses can describe their service in one sentence. Fewer can describe who their customer wants to become. Start there.
- Create your version of the “adventure guide.” Maverik renamed a job title and changed how every employee shows up for customers. Look at your own touchpoints (staff, signage, packaging, even your email signature) and ask what identity they currently reflect.
- Choose imagery and language that show the aspiration, not just the transaction. A photo of a jet ski sells more gas than a photo of a gas pump. Think about what your customer’s best version of themselves looks like, and put that in front of them.
- Build one signature moment or ritual. Maverik has the BonFire Grill and the Adventure Club. What’s the one thing customers associate specifically with you, that a competitor can’t easily copy?
- Stay consistent everywhere. Signage, social media, packaging, and in-person service all need to tell the same story. A single inconsistent touchpoint is usually where the aspirational feeling breaks.
If you want a deeper look at how brand identity, positioning, and visual assets fit together before you start building any of this, our brand strategy guide walks through the process step by step, and it’s worth reading alongside this one.
Key Takeaways
- Lifestyle branding sells an identity alongside the product. It works because people buy based on emotional connection first and features second.
- Maverik’s “Adventure’s First Stop” positioning, “adventure guide” staff titles, and Adventure Club loyalty program all point in the same direction, which is exactly why it works.
- Emotionally connected customers are worth 306% more over their lifetime than customers who are simply satisfied.
- Aspirational branding closes the gap between who your customer is today and who they want to become, and that gap is where loyalty gets built.
- Identity-based positioning is harder for competitors to copy than price or features, because it belongs to your brand specifically.
Ready to build a brand people actually aspire to?
At Big Red Jelly, brand strategy is the first step in our process for a reason. A strong logo doesn’t build loyalty on its own, but a clear identity does, and that identity should show up in your visuals, your messaging, your website, and every touchpoint after that. If you’re ready to figure out what identity your business should be selling, our brand strategy team would love to help you map it out on a brand discovery call.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lifestyle Branding
What is a lifestyle brand?
A lifestyle brand is a company built around a set of values, interests, or a way of life that its customers already have or aspire to have. Lifestyle branding is a marketing strategy where a company builds its identity around a set of values, interests, or a way of life that its target customers already have or aspire to have. The product or service becomes part of a bigger story about who the customer is, rather than the entire focus of the sale.
What is the difference between lifestyle branding and aspirational branding?
Lifestyle branding is the broader strategy of aligning a brand with an identity or way of living. Aspirational branding is a specific version of that, where the brand represents a life the customer doesn’t currently have but wants, like a gas station customer who isn’t an active jet skier but likes imagining they could be.
Does aspirational branding work for small businesses?
Yes. Aspirational branding depends on clarity, not budget. A local business can define the identity its customers want to project just as effectively as a national chain, and often more authentically, because the owner already knows their customers personally.
What are some good lifestyle branding examples?
Maverik positions gas stops around adventure and outdoor recreation. Patagonia sells environmental responsibility alongside outdoor gear. Red Bull markets itself through extreme sports content more than through the drink itself. Jeep builds community around off-road freedom, reinforced by traditions like the Jeep Wave.
How does Maverik use lifestyle branding?
Maverik built its brand around the tagline “Adventure’s First Stop,” calls its employees “adventure guides,” and designs its stores with adventure-themed murals, food stations, and a loyalty program called the Adventure Club. Every customer touchpoint reinforces the same outdoor, adventurous identity.
Why does emotional connection matter more than product features in branding?
Research published in Harvard Business Review found that customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand have 306% higher lifetime value, stay loyal for an average of 5.1 years versus 3.4 years, and recommend the brand at a rate of 71% versus 45% for merely satisfied customers. Features can be matched by competitors. Emotional connection is much harder to replicate.
Can lifestyle branding work for "boring" or everyday products, like gas or insurance?
Yes, and Maverik is proof of it. Gasoline is about as commodity as a product gets, yet Maverik built a loyal following around an adventure identity rather than fuel prices. The same principle applies to insurance, accounting, or any service that feels functional on the surface; the identity you attach to it is what makes people remember you.
What imagery works best for lifestyle or aspirational branding?
Imagery should reflect the customer’s aspirational self, not a literal depiction of the transaction. A gas station showing a jet ski instead of a gas pump, or an accounting firm showing a family on vacation instead of a spreadsheet, both work the same way: they show the outcome the customer wants, not the process required to get there.
What are the risks of aspirational branding?
The biggest risk is inconsistency. If your imagery promises adventure but your actual customer experience feels generic or unhelpful, customers notice the gap immediately. Aspirational branding also fails if it feels disconnected from what your business actually does or believes, which reads as marketing for marketing’s sake rather than a real identity.
How do I start building a brand customers actually identify with?
Start by identifying who your best customers want to become, not just what problem you solve for them. From there, audit every touchpoint (signage, staff, packaging, website, and social media) to see whether it currently reflects that identity or just describes your service. Small, consistent changes across those touchpoints matter more than one big rebrand.
