At a glance /
To be culturally relevant:
Be social-first
Don’t stifle reactive ideas with testing and research
Aim for meaning and longevity over size and speed
Identify which communities you can engage with, bring value to, and learn from
Be additive
Live at the speed of culture
Fast-paced, unpredictable, participative and politicised: at the best of times, culture is a moving target. It’s mercurial in nature, partly due to the fact that people are not only consumers of culture, they’re creating it and distributing it.
In a pre-social media time, the Marxist philosopher Raymond Williams described it as one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. More recently, Marcus Collins, the author of For The Culture and a marketing professor at the University of Michigan, told Contagious, that culture is difficult to define because it is omnipresent. ‘This is problematic,’ he explains, ‘because if we can’t describe it concretely, how do we ever fully leverage it?’ In this guide to cultural relevance, we break down the landscape of culture and ways in which brands can contribute and become part of the cultural conversation. Because brands that understand not just what culture is, but how people use it to make meaning, are most likely to have influence.
Mainstream culture is increasingly homogenous and monolithic – Instagram face, copy-paste interiors, logo blanding – so why do marketers struggle to keep up with culture?
Homogenisations are occurring, says economist Tyler Cowen, because of the profound diversity and different cultures taking place at the edge. His point is that the internet has created ways for all sorts of non-mainstream tastes to thrive and be satisfied, without compromise or bending to the mainstream.
Subcultures can apologetically be themselves and people at the edges can get exactly what they want, so the fight over the mainstream middle becomes all the more mainstream, as it is targeting the true conformists in that particular area.
So anyone into Goblincore, cottagecore, barbiecore, indiesleaze – can find their people, connect, share stories, create and sell products, buy them, without compromise.
Yael Cesarkas, executive strategy director, R/GA calls subcultures ‘hidden gems of engagement and impact,’ and explains that ‘in a landscape where no singular source dictates relevance and no monolithic media outlet decrees what’s attention-worthy, the strategy shifts’.
To help brands map out the most promising directions to pursue in order to matter in culture and the potential levers for ramping up the cultural connection, we’ve developed a cultural relevance framework. It identifies three spaces in which brands can align with culture: behaviours (i.e. evolving audience behaviours); values (societal causes and beliefs); and interests (lifestyle pursuits).
These are not mutually exclusive, nor do brands need to excel across all three. In categories with intrinsic passion points, such as sportswear, cultivating the lifestyle around the product may be the most natural fit. But for a traditional bank threatened by emerging players in fintech, focusing on behaviours may be more effective.
When it comes to behaviours, culturally fit brands are adaptable to changing consumer behaviours, and deft on the new platforms being adopted by their audiences. Higher up, cultural leaders set new benchmarks in expectations – they are really changing the dynamics of their industry.
Invest in social /
Remember when every brand was tweeting the same bland message about the Roman Empire? That’s a result of a disconnect between creatives and social teams, says creative chairperson of Accenture, Nick Law. ‘Social is the core media of our time,’ he told Contagious in a recent interview. ‘And yet, most agencies have got this copywriter coming up with ads and then the social team cut them up and put them on social media.’ Worse still are the agencies who ‘leave it to the kids off in the corner,’ he says. ‘The kids, because they haven't had a career to find their voice and to craft stuff, revert to best practices. So that's why every brand looks the same in social environments.’
The world of trends are today a ‘bit of a mess’ and have in recent years lost all meaning, adds Matt Klein, head of foresight at Reddit. ‘Brands started obsessing over the “trending” story of the day, hashtag, meme of the moment, or core aesthetic. Watching everyone engage in public conversations across social media, many brands believe emulating our “friends” would unlock cultural resonance.’ According to Reddit research, around 66% of people believe brands try too hard today. Even if a brand successfully jumps on a trend, its mere participation undermines the outcome. As soon as you show up, you may begin to mutate or dilute the ‘trend’.
Be agile /
Responding to social trends in a timely and relevant fashion requires agility and confidence in your brand. At McDonald’s, one of the tenets of the brand’s cultural relevance framework (called ‘Dare To Be Relevant’) is ‘Living in and leading culture at the speed of culture’. This embraces exactly the kind of ethos we’ve heard time and time again from luminaries in this space – the biggest challenge of our times is to have the agility to adjust to the speed of change.
Heinz jumped on a cultural moment last year when a photo of Taylor Swift ‘eating a piece of chicken with ketchup and seemingly ranch!’ went viral (it has since racked up 35 million views). Other brands responded quickly, such as ranch brand Hidden Valley Ranch, which changed its X handle to ‘Seemingly Ranch’ and teased a line of merch to match, but it was Heinz, which has sold Kranch (ketchup and ranch) since 2019 and is the official condiment supplier of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, that took the buzz furthest. Creative agency Rethink, Toronto, replied with a photo of its Kranch sauce mocked up as Ketchup And Seemingly Ranch, captioned ‘Seemingly Ranch (Heinz’s Version)’ (in a reference to the Taylor’s Version re-recordings of her back catalogue), generating a whopping 4.72 billion impressions.
‘The key is, if there’s a culturally relevant moment that aligns well with the brand, you press go,’ Aaron Starkman, CCO, Rethink, told Contagious. ‘No qualitative or quantitative testing. Just put out the idea you think will hit, see if people react like you think they will and if they do, start to grow in terms of scale, mediums and investment. Usually, it starts with something as simple as a social post.’
In the beer category, Budweiser responded to last-minute a ban on alcohol sales at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, of which it was an official sponsor, with its Bring Home the Bud campaign. Acting on its feet, the brand parleyed the question of what to do with all its beer for the tournament into a proactive creative response, tweeting: ‘New Day, New Tweet. Winning Country Gets the Buds. Who will get them?’
Promising an almighty celebration to the nation that won the tournament, the brand gave the fans a new rallying cry: #BringHomeTheBud. The hashtag was run on pitch-side advertising boards, and pictures showing stacked crates of banned Budweiser awaiting transportation began to appear across the media. In a final stroke of luck, the tournament was won by Argentina, carried by the footballing genius of Budweiser brand ambassador Lionel Messi. The campaign resulted in $400m of earned media, 225 billion impressions and a 70% share of voice during the World Cup.
‘People are craving ideas that are modern in thought, expression and execution,’ says Judy John, Global CCO at Edelman. In short, the faster the world changes, the more agile and in-tune brands are expected to be. Brands need to be creating work that has its finger on the pulse and cuts through.
Culturally fit brands take a clear position on the beliefs held not just by their audience but the company too. Above that, cultural leaders are trying to shape society’s values through a commitment to making the world a better place.
Take a position and stick to it /
Values and purpose marketing is the most contentious for brands to enter. It’s about aligning with the beliefs and causes people care about – issues like equality and diversity. You can only make a play here if it’s a value you genuinely believe in and can stand by, or you’ll be called out for jumping on the latest cause célèbre.
You can’t talk about brand purpose without mentioning Dove, whose long-standing commitment to building self-esteem in women and girls started with the Campaign For Real Beauty in 2004. The Dove team lives in culture, and over the past two years, the brand has focused its self-esteem project on the issue of social media’s reinforcement of toxic beauty culture, resulting in prominent campaigns such as #DetoxYourFeed, Reverse Selfie, Cost of Beauty and #TurnYourBack.
Through consistency and commitment to its cause, Dove has become recognised as a leader in this space; crucially, its campaigns are backed by education, training and lobbying for changes to the law. ‘There are two big things that they’re doing,’ explained Jo Bacon, the formal global lead for Ogilvy WPP. ‘One is trying to drive people’s awareness that there is a solution that’s already in place that they can sign up to. And also, we want people to know we have a view but we’re an actionist brand. We’re not an activist brand. The difference is we want people to take some responsibility and drive change. We want to galvanise people to be able to take action.’
Stay true to your brand identity /
Where brands go wrong in this space is by straying too far from their categories or areas of expertise. If it’s inauthentic, you risk being accused of corporate social responsibility box-ticking.
Mastercard’s long-term commitment to financial inclusion is both a business strategy and a brand purpose: ‘Cash is the tool of exploitation [and] money laundering,’ says Oriol Bombi, EVP, global strategy director, McCann XBC. ‘We push for a world in which more people are in the system, using electronic payments, because it’s good for them and it’s also good for us.’ When the war in Ukraine drove millions of refugees over the border and into Poland in 2022, Mastercard was well-placed to deliver practical support in an extension of its commitment to ‘Data for Good’ – to leverage data responsibly in service of society.
Where to Settle saw Mastercard leverage its key expertise and network to support Poland’s biggest cities with an influx of their displaced neighbours. The brand created a platform that gathered data into a user-friendly interface that could help refugees choose where to resettle. According to the agency, 20% of the 1.5 million refugees who settled in Poland used the platform to find new homes, and more than 300,000 people looked for a place to stay, completed the form and signed up for help.
‘The most effective and important way you can support a cause is through your core competency,’ said Pierre Lipton, former CCO at McCann New York. ‘It’s examining how what you do every day can affect the world at large if you make adjustments.’
Make your values a point of distinctiveness /
Over the years beer brand Corona has succeeded in latching on to a meaningful and weighty topic in a relevant way: sustainability. It has carved out a distinctive brand identity through its association with the beach and nature. The brand has developed some serious eco credentials, becoming the first global beverage brand to achieve a Net Zero Plastic footprint, establishing a new standard for the CPG industry. ‘Whenever we implement sustainability-related initiatives, the lift in brand attributes, such as affinity, is as good as or often better than the lift that you get with basic foundational campaigns,’ says Felipe Ambra, global VP Corona, Anheuser-Busch InBev.
In this third area, culturally fit brands engage with people’s passion points in an authentic way, capitalising on current events or topics of interest through sponsorship or newsjacking would fit here. At a higher level, cultural leaders rely less on borrowed relevance and instead become tastemakers, elevating the brand into a richer lifestyle scene, and setting the agenda in terms of interests and passion points.
Harness the power of niche /
To stand out in culture, it’s important to keep an eye on what’s trending at the fringes, in subcultures and communities, so that we can anticipate what might get absorbed in some way into the mainstream.
Take Gucci – over the past few years the luxury label has paid close attention to some of the key changes taking place in culture and has reorganised its organising principle as ‘Have a product that is exclusive and create a culture of inclusivity’. Gucci has dipped into cultures and communities at the fringes in order to impact the mainstream, for example through unexpected collaborations, such as its collection with outdoor apparel brand The North Face. For the second drop in this collection, the label recruited TikTok trainspotting star Francis Bourgeois – a great example of how the internet’s cultural gatekeepers – influencers – can cross over into the fashion and luxury landscapes in engaging and authentic ways.
At the other end of the fashion spectrum is Crocs. For years Crocs were as uncool as they are comfortable. Reviled and ridiculed, the brand was ultra-recognisable, but it was known for the wrong reasons. ‘We had super high awareness... but we had a challenge on the relevance,’ Yann Le Bozec, VP marketing EMEA-LATAM and global lead distributor marketing, told Marketing Week in 2022.
But by leaning into its divisive design and tapping into two cultural trends – self expression and inclusivity (the business established a new North Star, ‘To help make everyone feel comfortable in their own shoes’) – Crocs has become a titan of the casual footwear category, selling more than 100 million pairs of shoes annually in 85 countries.
Crocs reinforces the cultural relevance of its clogs by collaborating with a diverse array of celebrities, influencers and brands, from Palace Skateboards to Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing. Pivotal collections with names such as Post Malone and Bad Bunny have given Crocs access to huge fanbases, while partnerships with the likes of Balenciaga and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal have enabled the brand to show up in unexpected spaces, generating fan excitement and earning valuable PR.
‘We recognised early on the importance of partnering with ambassadors and influencers to transform the perception of this brand,’ Heidi Cooley, chief marketing officer at Crocs, told Brand Innovators. ‘Our biggest challenge was making our iconic clog relevant and showing consumers how they could wear Crocs... Although collaborations are definitely not the only strategic priority that’s helped with the resurgence, they have been a critical component of inviting new fans to the brand.’
Take consumers’ lead /
Baileys reversed years of long-terms ales decline by listening to customers and leaning into emerging trends. In the early 2010s, Baileys was in the midst of an identity crisis, facing cultural irrelevance and shedding sales volume. The world of cocktails had changed and Baileys were losing ground to growing categories like gin, prosecco and Aperol.
But a new strategy emerged when agency Mother noticed through online listening and ethnography that, all around the world, indulgent and tempting food was at the top of online searches and – more excitingly – few drinks brands seemed to be playing in this space. ‘It is about thinking like a publisher as much as an FMCG brand,’ said Jack Carrington, strategy director at Mother. ‘We spend a lot of time reading about food trends and we try and be on the cusp of what is happening in food and drink as well as alcohol.’
By responding to real-time insights and reframing its product as the ultimate treat and ingredient, the brand launched visually rich TV campaigns, an always-on publishing model of recipes and partnerships with food and drink influencers, dramatically boosting its consumption occasions and increasing sales by 32%.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to cultural relevance. It’s a question of thinking about the credible and authentic role for your brand, depending on your position in the marketplace, the dynamics of the category and the expectations of the audience.
Are you equipped to enhance people’s expectations on new platforms?
Are there values you can emphasise that form the bedrock of what you believe and how you behave?
What are the passions shared by your audience that you’re best-placed to foster?
This framework is a tool for assessing the right building blocks for you, or as a starting point for creative ideation. Depending on your chosen approach, there are a few dos and don’ts if you want to become a cultural leader:
Behaviours / Embrace an always-developing mindset, rather than relying on a single innovation. Culture is constantly changing and new platforms are always emerging, so staying relevant requires continual innovation.
Values / Live and breathe your values throughout the organisation. Don’t pay lip service or do something short term; you can’t make up your right to comment on social issues.
Interests / Don’t jump on the latest trends to be ‘cool’, you risk going off-brand or being category generic. Instead, set a new agenda – one that your brand is uniquely placed to address.
And finally…
Leave room for the audience. The most effective way of amplifying ideas in culture is to facilitate the connections between people. Create space for people to take ownership of themselves, using your brand assets as a means to connect to others – whether through live experiences, online communities or simply taking a photo of themselves with a statue.
Commit to the long term. One-off ads or events can create a cultural flashpoint, but genuine relevance requires a longer-term approach. As Clyde McKendrick, founder of specialist culture agency Zeitgeist Labs, told us: ‘Don’t build your brand in culture, build culture into your brand.’