How to activate a cultural program
3 steps
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Nobody knows anything.
Who could have predicted any of the random and transient pop culture explosions from the past year (Demure? Brat Summer? Man in Finance?)
Probably no one, trend spotters claims notwithstanding.
In cultural markets, success is as unpredictable as ever, because it depends on our attention, tastes, and preferences - all of which are heavily and unpredictably - socially influenced. We rarely choose to like something independently of one another (cue in Miranda Prestley’s cerulean monologue). We like things that other people like, making popularity of something a matter of cumulative advantage.
When brands are consumed together with everything else in culture, movies, music, art, entertainment, experiences, advertising, or photography, their playing field (and rules of the game) are shaped by the entire global cultural output. Brands can choose how they want to participate - through commercials or packaging or store experiences or product design - or through all of this plus brand voice and visual landscape, partnerships and collaborations, fandom management, content … all of which create, in the ideal world, cultural currency. When/if created, this currency expands brands’ cultural and market footprint, renews brand associations, caters to its many different customer segments, and boosts brand cultural credentials.
When your business depends on cultural currency, best is to create an entire portfolio of cultural output in the hopes that some of it will accumulate enough currency to meet your annual P&L projections. Just like venture capitalists invest in a lot of startups so one of them can make them most of the money, brands create cultural programs so that one output can make up for all the rest.
These strategic, considered, well-funded cultural programs are still rare (most brands continue to bet on a single “hit” or a couple of them). But a well-conceived cultural program is a springboard not just for costly seasonal initiatives of unpredictable success (like brand campaigns) but also provide a framework for an array of cultural
products, from limited editions to collaborations, merch and events, always-on content and hero product refreshes.
A solid program starts with a culturally exciting narrative, which is executed across the brand’s entire cultural output and amplified through media. This narrative isn’t just a brand manifesto or a campaign, but a common thread through everything that a brand does in culture. Its role is to synchronize all brand actions in culture, from copy and brand voice, to visual landscape to experiences and content and events. Narrative execution provides a rich and convincing brand universe in culture.
Having a unifying narrative connects organizational silos and disparate retail channels. By linking all of corporate functions and their output (design, merchandising, creative, sales, marketing) in a brand universe, a company ensures that if one of them fails, others can compensate for it.
Steps for creating a strong cultural program are:
Step 1: Define cultural output (content, products, collaborations, merch, visual landscape, brand voice, archives, special editions …) through which a brand has the biggest chance to influence culture.
There’s an entire playbook of cultural products available to brands, from merch to collaborations to exhibitions and events. The idea is not to deploy them all; the idea is to be strategic. This means using the brand narrative as a filter for the areas of culture that a brand wants to play in / be associated with and selecting cultural products based on the brand and business goals and priorities.