Ana Andjelic, a leading global expert in business and brand strategy, believes that modern brands should be hitmakers, influencing through a range of cultural elements and not through advertising.
Speaking at Cannes in Cairns, Presented by Pinterest, Andjelic said that brands who become “Hitmakers” by telling their narrative through a range of “cultural products” are the ones that will shape culture and win.
These cultural products are: entertainment, product celebrity, a creative universe, story, fandom, merchandising, styling, content, collaboration, intellectual property, aesthetics, image and retail experience.
“Brands used to tell their stories through PR, through advertising on TV, radio, and big campaigns. Now they tell them through these cultural products,” she said.
“These cultural products are literally productisation of what the brand stands for, of the brand experience, of the brand emotion.”
In today’s era of myriad fragmented media channels competing for ever-shortening attention spans, there are few environments where advertising influences culture and a multi-pronged approach is required.
“When traditional advertising was directed at the monoculture, for example you buy TV at the Super Bowl – and sports are one of the very, very, few moments where you get a lot of people watching at the same time, you have that monoculture (where ads can influence),” Andjelic said.
“Cultural products are aimed at subcultures, at niches, at communities. Today’s global culture has a lot of different cultures and subcultures. There is no such thing as pop culture anymore…(just) a lot of different cultures.
“And when we say a portfolio of (cultural) products, it means there is no one strategy; brands need to release strategies for a lot of cultural products at the same time…and in different cultural contexts.”
‘Good art is good business’
Andjelic is a leading business consultant and strategist of luxury brands and fashion. She led brand strategy and transformed Banana Republic, Esprit and fashion retailer Rebecca Minkoff, and worked agency side with Havas LuxHub, Razorfish, AKQA, Huge and Droga5.
Her lessons for brands isn’t just about achieving brand fame, it’s about top line growth.
“Andy Warhol said, ‘good art is good business’,” she added. “And if brands know how to influence culture through their products, through their images, to their stories, to their narratives, they can make more money.”
A McKinsey study found that companies that prioritise creativity have 67 per cent higher organic revenue growth, but Andjelic bemoans the current approach to creativity that is often siloed in departments like “marketing” or “creative” or “design” rather than throughout an organisation.
“Brands need to change this approach. Right now, we are in a situation that the pressure for creative production is such that efficiency is prioritised over original creative content. This pressure for efficiency leads to reboots and sequels, for example think Fast & Furious 17,” she said.
The curse of algorithms & Nike’s Panda-mic
This has led to a situation where the companies are creating products for “efficiency, the algorithm and productivity” because the speed of cultural production doesn’t allow you to create something that’s off grid and original.
An example that Andjelic uses is the explosion of Nike Low Dunk ‘Pandas’ (pictured above).
“You’re getting frozen in the same phases because the algorithm is giving you more of what you liked before…and everybody is wearing Pandas,” she said.
“Once the algorithm gets in, it becomes a mess because everyone is wearing the same thing, everyone is looking the same way.”
To overcome this, Andjelic said that the CMO, sending and creative departments need to become best friends with the CMO – in other words, uniting stewards of product with stewards of business performance and budget.
“In order to do that, it’s kind of combining the finance and the cultural impact with revenue growth. That is the remedy,” she said.
Andjelic concluded the presentation by saying that Australia’s “clean and healthy lifestyle and food culture is one of the nation’s strongest brands.
One that algorithms and efficiency (hopefully) can’t destroy.
Andjelic is the author of two books, including Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture, where she outlines cultural products and the strategy of cultural influence.
