From Social Patterns

I like the name cargo cult, but there's another name for this phenomenon that you might want to mention which is rituals.

I used to work for a company whose products were hopelessly outdated yet kept making offers because that's what worked before. They ignored changing circumstances around them and repeated the things that used to work in the past. I call these repeated actions based on historical group context for eliciting future outcomes as rituals.

Footage of The Original Cargo Cult

If you want to see footage of the original cargo cult on the Pacific islands after WW2 skip ahead to the 6min mark in this 1968 "Chariots of the Gods" film. Fascinating.