Bob Sheard: The Tribe archetype is a brand meaning system, it's a system that you would choose if the effect you want to design is one of belonging. That you want your consumers to feel part of something bigger than themselves, that they've got a sense of pride and self-belief and confidence in their own capabilities and they're looking at a sense of individual identity but set within a wider collective. So it's all about belonging.

The ritual of the Tribe is the rituals of learned experiences, it's the time of team-ship and it's the place of kith-ship, friendship. And so, with those three areas, they're underpinned by key values, the key rational values being respect, openness and equality, and the key emotional values being honour, inclusivity and generosity which, when brought together, deliver the effect of belonging. What you stand for is loyalty, the loyalty to the commune, and you stand against disloyalty. So that's where the conviction and charisma comes from, in the tribe. So in culture we see this.

I suppose the most powerful TV thing is Friends, where you see it as a Tribe of friends, but it's also, recently, best Picture Nomadland was all about the Tribe of Nomads and that was Fern in that. Captain Fantastic about the familiar Tribe, Stranger Things, and of course This Is Us, which is demonstrative of the Tribe through time. And all of those cultural entities have common narratives; the customs of the Tribe, the agency that the Tribe gives to its individuals, the continual reinvention of the Tribe, the communitas and love in the Tribe, the commitment in the Tribe and the acceptance of everybody and their imperfections within the Tribe. In brands we would see that as being Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Mini, Android and Starbucks, all of which have elements of customs, agency, reinvention, communitas, commitment and acceptance. So every Tribe needs an outgroup.

Michael Campion: How important is it to articulate that outgroup, if you are adopting the stance of a tribesman or that Tribe archetype?

Bob Sheard: Yeah, it's the other way around. The Tribe has to signify and symbolise from the centre and abdicate actions to the edges, so you don't have to curate or edit who's in and out of the Tribe. That's taken care of itself by what you symbolise and signify. So I think one of the best exponents of this in streets culture was Stussy. So Stussy, a Californian surf brand represented a certain kind of freedom. The people that gravitated towards that weren't necessarily all surfers. They were graffiti artists, hip hop artists, whoever it was, all around the world. So it's all about signifying and symbolising from the centre and abdicating the actions towards the edges. And then who's in the Tribe takes care of itself.