Cathedral Thinking in Action: How Rivian Reframes the Future of Brands

Last week we explored the emerging role of brand leadership as we pondered the role in AI and geopolitical turmoil on the global stage in shifting the way we think about branding. These conversations lead us to wonder whether any brands are leading the way towards this new horizon of more optimistic brand identity?

In this new era brands are going to need to step up and provide the leadership so many of us crave. There’s a real optimism vacuum, with many of us either lacking a shared vision of the future, leading to ennui or having a shared vision of a future where things continue to get worse and worse where the world is in an endless downless slump. This, of course, leads to nihilism, a lack of engagement in any efforts that would help make things better.

There is a better way of framing our collective future, and here’s one company leading the way. With a CEO who prioritizes big picture thinking, and a culture that emphasizes connection and education over slick sales tactics, electric car manufacturer Rivian models many of the virtues we’re looking for in a game changing, future oriented brand.

Brand as Leadership: Rivian Paves the Way

When we talk about the importance of stepping into the Brand as Leadership era, future oriented thinking becomes central to any metric of branding success. That means expanding what we think of as our corporate goals beyond the next quarter and thinking of the big picture. When we say big, we mean really big.

Speaking on the Plugged in Podcast, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said “What blows my mind is that U.S. automakers are reprioritizing capital toward internal combustion…this is very bad for my kids and their kids, and very bad for the U.S. auto industry.” Previously, Scaringe had noted the urgency he feels about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. “… [O]ur society in just a few generations has taken what accumulated over hundreds of millions of years and reinserted that CO2 back into the atmosphere by burning these fossil fuels in just over 150 years.”

This negative change may have happened within just a few human lifetimes, but Scaringe’s message focused on the importance of long-term thinking to bring our planet, and our hope for the future, back on track. “When one imagines what the history books will look like 2,000 years from now, they’re going to look back and there’s going to be this little blip, which is likely called the fossil fuel era,” he said. “And then hopefully the history books read that we developed new technologies to move off of fossil fuels before we put all that carbon back into the atmosphere.”

Like anything worthwhile, change takes time, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth doing. While many of us feel daunted by the scale of these issues, Scaringe emphasizes the importance of incremental change in moving the needle and pointing the way towards a sustainable future. By emphasizing, recognizing and rewarding these values throughout their organization, Rivian advances positive change, now and for generations to come.

People Centered, Culture First

Rivian’s commitment to culture and creating customer buy-in starts on the sales floor. On a recent visit to a neighborhood Rivian Space (Rivian´s term for their dealerships), we were struck by how different the experience was from past interactions with car salespeople. Instead of feeling transactional, the visit felt like a true intellectual connection based on shared values and shared goals.

There was none of the stereotypical pushiness or upselling, a sense that we were walking dollar signs to be squeezed for every dime. The sales consultant reflected an attitude of true openness and curiosity and dedicated a major chunk of their afternoon to discussing Rivian’s goals and technologies – despite the fact that we made it clear there would be no purchase at the end of the conversation.

A peek at the Rivian careers page reveals that salespeople are expected to “Act as a Rivian brand and product specialist, evangelizing the mission and product vision that sets us apart.” The key word here is mission. Sales people weren’t just informed about the product, they seemed to share Scaringe’s optimism and commitment to the big picture view. Their focus was on the role their product plays in shaping a brighter future, values that echoed through every aspect of the design and framing of our interaction.

This emphasis on mission-minded connections stood out in our interactions with the team in our local showroom, a fact that speaks highly to the cultural and messaging coherence of Rivian as an organization. It’s exactly this kind of company-wide mission driven thinking that Rivian relies on to make their big-picture plans a reality, by drawing on what our colleague and collaborator Christian Rishel of Circudyne speaks frequently of as “long-term Cathedral Thinking” throughout their work.

Cathedral Thinking vs. Quarterly Earnings

Author Roman Krznarnic introduced the term “Cathedral Thinking” in his book The Good Ancestor. Rivian’s promise to “Keep the world adventurous forever,” fits the bill, preserving a brighter, bolder future both now and for generations to come. It captures the disposition and experience of cathedral builders, the stonemasons carving the fine details into the living rock, or carefully laying down tile on the floor of the apse. These men knew their work would not be appreciated, or even finished, for many generations to come. And yet they found meaning in their work, and the faith that it would be continued by artisans who came after them, each generation doing its small part to build a greater and more beautiful whole.

Scaringe and the team at Rivian are cathedral thinkers. Framing their mission on a thousand year scale, the brand positions themselves not only as carmakers but as systems integrators, visionaries shaping the future of mobility. It is exactly this lack of big picture, systemic thinking that has slowed the process of adaptation to electric car usage so far, and made consumer adoption a tentative process. People want electric cars. People like electric cars. But without faith in an infrastructure to make them functional, they won’t buy into this, or any other, new technology.

By leading with ecosystem development, human-centered retail and advocacy for industry-wide EV adoption beyond their own brand growth, Rivian evinces the brand as leadership model in action. This kind of long-term, holistic strategy not only shapes a better, stronger brand, but also a better future for us all.