founders to share their business sins, client horror stories, and even the business secrets they’re gatekeeping. The humour gives us a way to connect and have conversations about the messier parts of running a business. (The most unhinged confession is printed in the newspaper each month too, anonymously of course!) we are now coming to realise the value in having something in our hands and someone beside us. Give Print a New Meaning We all know the fate of a flyer that comes through the letterbox. That’s right, straight into the bin. Or last time you saw a Metro newspaper, discarded on a train only for someone to sit on. It’s our unofficial duty as lovers of print to give people a reason to value print more. Give them a reason to care, through both the experience of receiving it and the usefulness of what’s inside. For me, that thinking extends to the whole customer journey, from cult confessions on Instagram to Brand Cult arriving on their doorstep in an ominous black envelope. The newspaper is sealed with hand poured wax and scented with its own brand scent (yes, you read that right). So, opening it becomes a small ritual, with the feeling that you have received something worth making time for. No longer just a publication, readers (or cult members) are now part of the Brand Cult world. And it wouldn’t be a cult without a cult leader. Although, calling yourself Cult Leader does raise a few eyebrows, it also gives us a shared joke and a recognisable identity, which I make sure is carried throughout the tone and design of the publication. Ultimately, the goal is to give print a new meaning. We All Want to go From URL to IRL As much as I bang on about being offline and enjoying physical print, I’ll admit that I do have to use Instagram to spread the Brand Cult doctrine from time to time. And as Brand Cult grew, I realised I was missing something vital. I had built an audience/readership but not a community because belonging needs the opportunities for people to contribute. And that’s how Cult Confessions was born. Through Cult Confessions every Sunday on Instagram stories, Cult Leader invites ▲ Brand Cult says it is the UK's "first printed business newspaper for brand-obsessed founders" To be honest, in this digital era, we’ve made it incredibly easy to reach people. But along the way, we’ve also forgotten how to connect and build relationships Yet, I still felt like it was missing something. I knew I needed to bring that participation into a physical space. So, I thought “let’s take this from URL to IRL, and bring the confessions to life”. I decided to turn a real 16th century church confession booth into a travelling experience for business events, where founders can enter and confess their business sins to Cult Leader, then leave with branded photo booth prints. Not to mention the Brand Cult scent diffused into the air, making the physical space feel like an extension of the publication. My confession booth concept has actually taken Brand Cult into the finals of The Drum and Canon’s Print Without Limits competition. The Drum, featured it alongside other ideas exploring what happens when creative work escapes the screen. The fact that this competition even exists is encouraging, because it gives creative teams permission to explore how print can make an idea more intentional. It asks us to think about the physical experience from the start, with room for print to shape what people do and how they connect. That is the future I want to help build, where a publication gives people a reason to find each other and something to keep coming back to. A newspaper arriving through the letterbox could be the beginning of a friendship, a collaboration ,or a conversation someone needed that week, and I think that feels like a future worth printing. 20 www.printmonthly.co.uk Issue 363 - November | December 2026 FRESH PERSPECTIVES | KIERIAN CAMERON ▼ Subscriptions to Brand Cult start from £14.99 a month
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