In the op-ed, Nick Kavanagh, chief strategy officer at iProspect, argues that culture-led marketing only thrives when it leans into contradiction.
Anna Wintour stepping down as editor-in-chief of Vogue in June marked almost 40 years at the apex of global fashion.
But beyond Vogue, her signature sunglasses and being the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, Wintour is probably best known as the gatekeeper to the Met Gala.
Under her stewardship, Wintour turned what had become a staid fundraising event for New York high society, into arguably the world’s greatest cultural spectacle. A place, according to one commentator, “…where she would bring the biggest fashion designers and mingle them with the biggest celebrities, musicians and rap artists”.
This clashing of high and low art, of avant-garde fashion with popular culture, was wholly intentional. And as an example of culture-led marketing, is flawless.
As algorithms have begun to globalise culture, creating a homogenised landscape
where only the familiar is prioritized, culture-led marketing is something we’re becoming obsessed with as an agency. Experiences where brands leverage cultural spaces already filled with passion and fandom might just be our best weapon against algorithms consistently bringing us back to the chino-wearing mean.
Arguably, the best part of working in media agencies has always been the use of culture as a vehicle for brand growth; seeking to leverage and bend popular culture to our client’s advantage through sponsorships, partnerships, activations or licencing.
But the tactic has tended to be a bit of a gamble: culture-led ideas are generally expensive, short-term in their effects and based, to some degree, on vibes and gut feeling. Their success as unpredictable as their impact difficult to measure. And as we shifted our focus to all things measurable, culture-led ideas became a tough sell.
Added to that, infinite scrolling reigns supreme as access to content becomes boundless. Algorithms dictate what we see. Influencers who command massive followings can be virtually unknown outside of their communities. Culture changes so fast that repeating old tactics can be inefficient or ease your brand into a snugly fitting denim-clad cultural faux pas.
But what if successful culture marketing was neither a vibe nor a stroke of luck?
What if how brands infiltrate culture can be transformed from a roll of the dice to a well-planned, finely engineered marketing success?
Applying the principals of performance strategy and planning to culture hacking for brands, we’ve started to codify the rules of successful culture marketing: attempting to apply a combination of data and human intelligence to define not just where our clients should play in culture, but how.
The great thing about culture, because it’s innately human, is that it doesn’t always make sense. At least not at first. Algorithms chase logic; culture thrives on contradiction. Which is why, above all else, the number one tactical unlock is to aim for the counterintuitive.
Defining the cultural window of opportunity is about identifying a space that’s a good fit for the brand positioning and audience motivations, while avoiding the tyranny of the category cultural norm. And the one category that really gets this? Luxury.
Oddly, their paid advertising is generally derivative. But time and again we see iconic luxury brands built on the tenets of craft, provenance and exclusivity by flexing their brand into parts of popular culture that sit well-outside their world. Whether it’s Gucci’s high-fashion vs. low-culture collab with Go-Pro wearing trainspotter Francis Bourgeois, or Balenciaga’s partnership with cult LA-based grocer Erewhon, the luxury category rules the roost when it comes to surprising partnerships and stories that cut through the algorithm and generate earned awareness.
Take the Met Gala on face value, and it’s a super niche experience that algorithms could easily overlook. But because its contradictory – because it’s not just about fashion but narrative and art and music and celebrity – it works. Not just as a spectacle designed for the era of the feed, but as a piece of effective marketing. This year’s Gala raised $31m in support of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
These crossovers aren’t logical, they’re emotional and social. They reflect the ways actual real-life people blur their passions, rituals, and identities. And here’s the kicker: most algorithms wouldn’t serve them up, because they are too niche, too contradictory, too human.
That’s why culture marketing needs more than dashboards. It also needs eyes, guts, and curiosity. It needs people who don’t just ask “What makes sense for this brand?” but “What doesn’t make sense… yet?”
The next big thing is probably hiding in the gaps your model thinks are irrelevant.
