At a certain point Rainbow sandals became the defacto sandal of southern frat boys. Did they market to them? No. Some influencer decided he liked them and it slowly spread. Now it's just the established norm. Most of society just follows trends. And if you're a company, you are at the mercy of these trends. Yes you can try to create them, but you can fail just because your rival got lucky.

Did Smirnoff Ice instigate Bros Icing Bros? No but they're sales spiked because of it.

Did PBR market to hipsters? No but they adopted it as their own and now PBR reaps the benefits.

Run DMC wrote about Adidas without being paid a cent. Was Adidas really BETTER than any other shoe brand? Adidas just kind of got lucky.

You may throw something back at me about reaching influencers... yes you can try to do that.... but to a certain degree you're at the mercy of society's whims.