If you’ve been in the social game for some time, you’d be right in feeling like the industry has come full circle. Community is everything. Organic content has value (who knew?). Newsjacking is hot. “Make it go viral” is back (still cringe, ngl). And most importantly, connecting through culture is crucial. Again.
In this op-ed, Emma Parsons, head of content at M&C Saatchi Group, proports that none of this is a bad thing. We had a while there where social media somehow lost its socialness, so I welcome the turning of the tides. And thankfully this time ‘round, there seems to be a lot more method to the madness. Because this time “playing in culture” is not just a community manager smashing out memes, it’s a total reimagining of how brands show up in and shape the world.
Connecting through culture means delivering cultural power, designed to incite meaningful change that progresses the way we live. If you shape culture, you move beliefs. If you do that
you can move behaviour and if you do that, you can change the outcomes of the world.
So how do we ensure that, as marketers, what we create is truly powerful (and not just a quick way to drum up engagement?)
The solution is combining resonance – aligning your brand with the values, aspirations and emotions of your audience, with cultural momentum – the ability to drive change, whether it’s how people behave, or what they say.
Cultural resonance + Cultural momentum = CULTURAL POWER.
And if you get it right, your brand will enjoy a lasting influence. Dr Marcus Collins, a renowned cultural strategist, says “if you want to get people to move, there’s no vehicle more powerful or influential than culture. Culture is how we inspire people to act.” Often, the mistake is made by marketers to confuse culture with popularity, or prevalence, when in reality, what we should be striving for is to make ourselves meaningful. Take the music scene in Australia – Chappell Roan may have won Triple J Hottest 100 thanks to her popularity on Tiktok, but it’s the Aussie band Amyl and the Sniffers coming in at number 32 who have almost single-handedly revived the punk/rock scene in the country.
So what does it look like, when it’s done well?
The most recent example just peaked – Heinz’s mustard x DJ Mustard collab. For those unfamiliar with its origins, the (mustard) seed was sown when Kendrick Lamar roared “MUSTAAAARD” on ‘TV Off’, his track produced by DJ Mustard. The shout was instantly memeified, with the usual influx of brands quickly jumping on the social bandwagon.
Heinz, already lauded for their excellent reactivity, took it to the next level. First, they created a billboard. Then they made DJ Mustard their “Chief Mustard Officer”. Many, in the meantime, were screaming on their socials for a collab. They showed they were listening by teasing one, on the night DJ Mustard won a grammy for the album the song is from. It will be their first new mustard flavour in a decade. And just this week, Mustard cemented himself in culture by joining Lamar onstage to perform ‘TV Off’ as part of the Superbowl half time show.
This level of exposure will now have many more excited for how Heinz launch their new mustard, with many hopeful it will continue to live within the same cultural context as it started (beyond a blinged up bottle), because that’s where the secret sauce lies. Now Heinz mustard holds meaning to those who are positively influenced by this sizable pocket of popular culture. Now when they need mustard, or sauce of any kind, “It has to be Heinz”.
If gaining cultural power for your brands is something you’re keen to explore but unsure of where to start, here are some provocations that you might find helpful:
How do we contribute to culture, not just borrow from it, and how do we do it in a way that reflects our positioning?
How do we talk about our brand in the context of what matters to our audience right now?
How do we create something that provides someone with social currency, a way to connect with their friends, or that helps them project the image they’re looking to project?
Ultimately, yes there’s a place in your social strategy for reactivity to what’s happening in culture, but if you truly want to strike a chord with people whilst evolving with, or ahead of, culture, you need to take a step back and reconsider how your brand is showing up in people’s lives and in society, not just in their feeds.
