Bloom Thinks: Culture Series Part 2

Many brands ‘do’ culture without a strategy. How can brands mirror how culture functions in the real world, for real people?

More brands are wisely making efforts to participate actively in culture. But when some hear ‘culture’ they think ltd editions and collabs. These might work for fashion whose fans love a drip-feed of drops, remixes and reboots. This stuff buys them cultural cachet. But the drops approach is harder to apply to other categories.

For a start a drip-feed is extremely expensive to sustain. Brands have to chase the trend cycle, with every drop starting from a blank sheet of paper. And it’s creative without a strategy, so it doesn’t pay back to the brand. It creates conversation but leaves few memories once the buzz has died.

But more than anything this approach doesn’t line up with how culture functions in real life.

Humans invented culture to bind individuals into groups. On our own we were rubbish at remembering which mushrooms were edible. We were ready meals for sabre-tooth tigers. And we froze in winter. Groups are way better at remembering mushrooms, fighting tigers, and surviving weather. But to do it they need be united by shared beliefs and values. This is what culture does for us.

Structural anthropologists like Claude Levi-Strauss explained how culture works. On-the-ground research taught them that tribes, families, communities and nations are held together by the binary choices they make. Think friend vs. foe. Heaven vs. earth. Nature vs. nurture. Me vs. we.

In the modern day we still make binary choices to find our crowd. Dating app or IRL? Clean Girl or Brat? Voice note or text? Seth Godin deftly describes it as ‘people like us, doing things like this.’ He says what sustains a crowd is the thing they want more of in the world. What tomorrow do they want to create? What yesterday do they want to move away from?

So to truly participate in culture brands need to first make a choice that binds them to their crowd. For example Oreo’s cultural activations create more playfulness (e.g. Pokemon, metaverse, Pacman). Heinz’s make the everyday extraordinary (Ed Sheeran tattoos, ketchup splodge merch, fashion designer collabs). Coca-Cola Creations make magic real (starlight flavour, pixel flavour, happy tear flavour). Love them or hate them these brands are participating with credibility. Because their cultural activations reinforce their positionings, as well as create a buzz.

There are too few good examples. Too many brands jumping on Pride or Halloween and thinking they’ve ticked the culture box. Cultural activations might end with collabs and ltd editions. But it needs to start with a strategy. That means picking a lane and sticking to it.