MORE than four decades ago, Cass Elliot advised, "Make your own kind of music." Since then, exhortations by advertisers to express individuality — by, oddly enough, consuming mass-market products — have grown louder.

An example of how the mainstream is becoming a collection of niche streams is a campaign to be announced on Tuesday by the cap maker New Era, which carries the theme “Fly your own flag.” The campaign, by a New York agency named Brooklyn Brothers, salutes “flag bearers,” as it calls achievers who march to their own drummers (while, of course, wearing New Era caps).

In print and online ads, consumers will be urged to “Start your own movement,” “Raise your own game,” “Blaze your own trail,” “Create your own world,” “Sing your own song” and “Make your own grand entrance” — just about everything except “Be your own brand” and “Grow your own vegetables.”

The campaign has a budget estimated at $10 million through the end of next year. That is more than the combined total of $6.1 million spent by New Era in 2008 and 2009 to advertise in major media, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.