Why Your Business Needs a Spirit Animal

And it's not just New Age nonsense. In the cutthroat jungle of modern business, sometimes you need more than spreadsheets and KPIs to stand out. Enter the corporate spirit animal – not just woo-woo nonsense for incense-burning executives, but a legitimately clever branding tool that's equal parts strategic and, well, hilarious.

© Cao Fei "My City is Yours", 2024

Consider Maison d'Art, the art consultancy that's embraced the octopus as their eight-armed spirit guide. Not just any cephalopod, mind you, but one with nine brains for lateral thinking because one executive brain is never enough, three hearts to spread the love because one corporate heart is typically two too few, and enough arms to juggle client demands, artists, and coffee cups simultaneously.

The beauty of a business spirit animal isn't just that it makes for entertaining business card designs. It's that it creates an instant mental shorthand for your company's values. When someone asks, "What does your company do differently?" saying "We're octopus-minded" is infinitely more memorable than droning on about "synergistic client-focused solutions." Plus, it gives your team something to rally around that isn't another motivational poster featuring a soaring eagle with the word "Excellence" beneath it. "Channel your inner octopus today!" somehow hits differently in the Monday morning email.

So before you dismiss spirit animals as corporate shamanism, consider this: in a world where businesses are desperately trying to appear human, sometimes it takes embracing your animal side to truly stand out. Just make sure your spirit animal isn't the sloth. Unless, of course, you're selling premium nap pods – in which case, embrace away!

Yours truly,

Margot

MD'A sidenote: “I’m concerned about the digital virtual world, but I also care about the real feelings of human beings.” claims Cao Fei (b. 1978, Guangzhou, China). Her immersive exhibition "Meta-Mentary" took visitors on a journey through a post-digital Metaverse, with references to Communism, China, and Covid. Hello Oz – a more sinister human-Octopus hybrid with a gender fluid appearance. Situating the installation in Lenbachaus’s subterranean exhibition space in the Munich Metro was a stroke of curatorial genius, which injects an atmosphere of a futuristic Metropolis to the experience, juxtaposing the Metaverse with contemporary life via a view of Urbanites journeying underground through a glass window at the end of the exhibition.