Aspirational brand

In the context of fashion magazines, the "aspirational model" offers readers continuing (and continually changing) fashion, beauty, and physical ideals to which they can aspire but, perhaps, never actually achieve. Criticized for this approach, magazine editors have claimed that their readers do not want to see "real-life" models or the way that beauty products and clothes look on "real women"; that they buy the magazines in the first place because they prefer the aspirational fantasies, and in the second, because they continually hope that by following the advice or buying the products, they will achieve the ever-changing looks that the magazine promotes via the models and photographic/technological wizardry.


Aspirational brand strategies are strategies designed to reposition a brand within a marketplace. The idea is that brand can lead organizational change and lead consumer opinion about a brand. Aspirational brand strategies are used when the current image of the brand is either negative or no longer relevant to the company.
A classic example of a company repositioning a brand aspirationally is The McGraw-Hill Companies. Consumer research showed that the general public strongly associated the name McGraw-Hill with school text books. While education products remain a pillar of the company, the business owns other well-known brands such as Standard & Poor's, McGraw-Hill Education, Platts, and J.D. Power & Associates. The company has repositioned around the aspiration of providing people "with the information and insights they need to adapt and grow in changing times" with the tagline of "About a Smarter, Better World".

Companies should use great care in employing an aspirational brand strategy. The company needs to be structured around truly delivering on the promise and must have employees who understand the brand goals and actively and daily work to achieve them. BP learned the dangers of aspirational branding during the summer of 2010 during the BP/Deepwater Oil Spill disaster. As the article BP: Disingenuously Branding explains, the aspiration of the company to be environmentally friendly and "Beyond Petroleum" backfired in a big way.