In 2024, culture is the word of the moment. It's on every brand brief, in every agency proposition but while culture dominates the industry thought leadership agenda does anybody actually know what it really means? 

While culture might be in danger of becoming a buzzword, according to research from Kantar brands with high cultural relevance grow six times more than brands at low levels. Tapping into culture has been proven to have a significant positive impact for brands, but is tapping into cultural trends anything different that what skilled marketers would usually do?

At an event hosted by Creativebrief in collaboration with Exposure, Charlie Carpenter, CEO at Creativebrief sat down with Sophie More, Global Director of Digital Marketing, Media and Communications at William Grant & Sons, Raoul Shah, Founder and Joint CEO at Exposure and Jed Hallam, Co-Founder and Managing Director at CultureLabs, to consider what does it really mean to build a culturally relevant brand in 2024?

Understanding culture

Defining culture is hard because it means so many things to different people. “Culture isn’t a thing, it’s the world outside,” says Raoul Shah, Founder & Joint CEO of Exposure. For Shah culture is about connection and finding new ways to connect with consumers beyond selling. He believes rather than thinking about product, culture is about thinking about thinking through the lens of an audience and their interests. 

Sophie More, Global Director of Digital Marketing, Media and Communications at William Grant & Sons seconds this way of thinking. She explains: “It's what people care about and what they are thinking about. That’s probably not your brand.” 

She points to the example of Red Bull as a brand that is structured around its audience's interests. At the energy drink, there are specific marketing teams in music, skateboarding and students, which focus on communities and their interests. This approach enables the brand to connect with their audience where they are in places they have a genuine passion.

“Brands want to be an emblem of culture,” says Jed Hallam, Co-Founder and Managing Director at CultureLabs. He points to the example of the sorts of shoes people wear and their cultural connotations as an example of how brands want to show up. 

When a brand becomes a symbol of a set of belief systems, it becomes truly embedded in culture. Giving the example of owning a Stanley Cup to show the world you are fashionable, health conscious and environmentally conscious, a brand can be an extension of an individual's beliefs. This feelings-first approach gives a brand the ability to connect in a far deeper way.

Connecting with authenticity

To truly connect with audiences, a foray into culture must be authentic. “Culture marketing is marketing. It’s not a separate thing or a bolt-on. It has to be at the centre of positioning and embedded into marketing plans,” says More.

She urged the audience to recognise that culture marketing is not a quick fix, but instead should be embedded into the way a brand operates. When a brand has strong values, it can step into culture with a strong tone of voice. For example, Marmite’s commitment to ‘love it or hate it’ allows it to enter into cultural conversations with its own distinctive tone.

Shah stresses that the best relationships are created by commitment. This goes beyond just being aligned with something via partnerships or sponsorships, brands must live and breathe their values. He gives the example of the election to underline that consumers are privy to disinformation, they also question the motives of brands that appear disingenuous. 

Where authenticity is essential, Hallam adds: “I don’t think every brand has to be part of culture.” However, he urges marketers to not feel that culture is limited only to those same few brands like Dr Martens and Red Bull that have it embedded in their DNA. “With the data available it shouldn’t be relying on one person's subjective opinion on where culture is going,” he says. Yet he also points out that much of the existing data has no cultural understanding, underlining the need for new measurement methods in this space. 

Connection through entertainment

When people think of culture, they often associate it with entertainment, music and the arts. Whilst it is much broader than that, where the Ad Association Value of Trust Report cites enjoyment and entertainment as the number one driver of trust, it's clear that entertainment is a great way to connect with audiences. 

Against a backdrop of socioeconomic unrest, climate change and war, Shah stresses that giving audiences entertainment is more important than ever. He says: “The responsibility that comes with that is huge, but also a huge opportunity. Entertainment makes you think, feel and gives you a sensory belief in something or someone.”

“We try to become like economists and predict people, people don’t always follow a linear path to purchase, we think in communities,” explained Hallam. He continued: “We lean far too much to the side of economists and forget about anthropology and research, understanding how people think and feel about things.”

Putting culture into practice 

So where do brands that want to authentically play in this space start? At William Grant & Sons, More has worked alongside Exposure to create a framework that its portfolio brands can consult when it comes to culture marketing. 

The core pillars of the framework include looking at the brand’s existing truth and exploring what that means for audiences and communities. As well as considering what tensions audiences face and what role can the brand play in that space. For example, for Hendrick’s, this might mean helping audiences step out of their day-to-day lives. It is a framework that can be applied to all brands, across cultures because it looks at the brand's existing values and builds from there, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Hallam believes there are three predominant ways to play in culture. Firstly ‘mirroring’ where a brand might use existing signposts of cultural relevance. Secondly ‘platforming’ which sees brands elevate an existing community. Finally ‘building properties’ where a brand creates cultural currency from scratch. Championing more long-term thinking, he warns against chasing the high of a viral moment. Comparing the eternal search for a viral marketing moment to chasing the high of a dopamine hit where it becomes easy to lose brand values. 

More urges brands to embrace simplicity and ask the question: “Is what we are doing as a brand worth anyone going to tell their friends about?”. As for advertisers too, creating culturally relevant work can be the most engaging and creatively fulfilling. Culture might be the marketing industry’s buzzword, but beyond the buzz a culture-first approach is driving meaningful connections with consumers.