Has your brand built a ritual people would feel weird not doing?

The Art & Science of Memorability

If our time working with brands has taught us anything, it's that the ones people feel genuinely connected to aren't always the ones with the biggest budgets or the loudest campaigns. They're the ones that have built something into the occasion itself, a behaviour so ingrained that not doing it would feel odd.

Not a slogan or an instruction on the back of the pack. A repeatable action that turns an ordinary product into something that feels like yours.

There are countless ways to win attention, but many brands never think past the point of purchase. The ones people genuinely connect with have built something into the moment of use that people do without being asked, every single time. That's ritual creation, and it's quieter and far more powerful than most brands realise.

Corona and the lime is a perfect example of it in action.

Nobody knows exactly how it started. Bartenders, beachgoers, a wedge to keep flies out of the bottle? The origin has a dozen versions and none of them matter. What matters is that somewhere along the way, pushing a lime into a Corona became the thing you just do.

You push the wedge in, watch it sink or leave it in the bottle neck, and take the first sip. You've done it, we've done it, everyone who's ever ordered a Corona has done it. Not because anyone told them to, but because not doing it would feel wrong.

That's a ritual, and Corona understood that the lime wasn't garnish. It was the entire occasion.

Wherever it originated, Corona embraced the ritual of the lime and it's a play that's paid off. Their 2026 Lime Guides campaign laser-etched over 25,000 limes across 30 retailers on three continents. An earlier campaign drove a 29% increase in sales and $11 million in earned media. Proof that when you own the ritual, the ritual sells the brand.

And this isn't a drinks thing. Rituals turn up wherever people use anything, and the brands that own one rarely invented it, they just spotted it first. You twist an Oreo open, lick the middle, then dunk it. You run your thumb down the foil of a KitKat and snap a finger off before the first bite. You smack a Terry's Chocolate Orange on the table to break it apart. None of that was on a brief. Each one started as something people already did, until a brand was smart enough to notice and brave enough to make it theirs.

So here's the question worth sitting with: is there something people already do with your product that you've never built on? A moment, a sequence, a small behaviour sitting right there waiting to be owned?

Most brands never spot it. The ones that do don't get there by adding more, they get there by paying closer attention than anyone else in the category.

If you're not sure where to start, our programs help brands find the ritual worth owning and turn it into the thing people do without thinking. Not just noticed, remembered.