#07 Measuring Cultural Relevance, Millennial Stereotypes and Fandoms
This week I met up with a leader from the cultural insight space, and we talked about how there are different ways to create culturally relevant brand work. For many colleagues “cultural relevancy” is synonym to taking a stand on a controversial issue or worthy cause, when in fact, that’s not really required. I’m going to explore that a little bit more down below.
ALSO, Christmas season has really kicked off in the UK. I’ve kept this week’s edition pretty much festive-free, but I’d love to know which ad is your favourite (I feel like I might do a special Xmas edition later on). Enjoy!
⚡️Fast culture (something popular/trendy this week)
The reaction towards Sonic the Hedgehog’s character design was loud and clear when fans revolted against the movie back in April. Paramount listened to the critics, set out to correct the issues, pushed the release date three months, and six months later, we have an improved design.
In the past, network executives and producers would’ve silenced fan opinions characterising them as unrepresentative of general public sentiment, and disregarded their input into the production and creative process. Not today, though - Sonic had to be remade by its fans so it could better speak to the audience interests and more fully address their desires.
What’s driving it: fandoms’ sophisticated ways of lobbying against products are the springboard of consumer activism
🌎Slow culture (change in behaviours or values in society)
For the past 10 years, the media has been blaming millennials for ruining everything. But the reality is, in the US millennials carry most of the burden of the nation's $1.4 trillion student-loan debt crisis, their unemployment rate is more than double the national average and they earn 20% less than Generation X.
Buzzfeed took data from the US Census Bureau and found out that the number of millennials financially supporting their parents is the same as the number of boomers who support their grown children. They rightly point out that millennials aren’t the first generation to support their parents, but reading some of the real stories submitted by their community really brings to life the pressure and struggles they are facing.
What does this mean: framing stereotypes as “characteristics” of an entire generation diverts the attention away from the complex social structures that result in millennials’s current living conditions.
🖌Unusual pattern (two unrelated things coming together)
Fasting diets have been growing in popularity, but this is a new concept I hadn’t heard of before: dopamine fasting. The proposal is to cut down on everything that releases dopamine (like social interactions, attention, and addictions - meaning we should do and consumer nothing) for a period of time to “reset” some kind of neurochemical imbalance.
It’s absolute nonsense, but of course, as everything that comes from Silicon Valley, the focus is on cutting down technology and media consumption to have more “mental clarity”. As this article from Vice rightly puts it, dopamine fasting could actually be detrimental to mental health. An interesting read.
🎯Cultural insight (the insight from culture behind an advert)
Back to my point from the beginning. The Association of National Advertisers in the US just released the most effective multicultural marketing campaigns of the last years. They have an ad metric called Cultural Insights Impact Measure that considers eight attributes to establish if an ad is culturally relevant: inclusion, respect, cultural values, authentic portrayals, positive reflections, role models, celebration and cultural pride. This is a useful measurement metric for American marketers who often need to reach African Americans, Latinos, Asians, LGBT+ and white Americans with the same messaging, although it’s a metric mostly focused on multiculturalism.
The eight attributes that they point out are definitely useful, but achieving relevance in marketing can be done through smaller decisions as well (colours, slang, typography, locations, interior design, all those things have cultural meaning).
But first and foremost, cultural relevance is an exercise in humility. Not many marketers are willing to take a step back from their product/category-centric world and become aware of the cultural surroundings in order to appropriately place their brand in the social context. We should remind them of the value of doing so.
🕶 Bonus track
TikTok of the week: popular songs used in TikTok memes are making it to official music charts and making millions of dollars to otherwise unknown artists. This musician briefly explains TikTok’s impact on the music industry.
Extra links:
Three related readings on digital marketing: Research finds brand-building impact of digital advertising underestimated, The new dot com bubble is here: it’s called online advertising and Mark Ritson on why he’s OK with TV but welcomes a ‘post-digital’ world
Contagious Strategist Digest has some really good research worth checking out
Now that Netflix has more streaming competitors, it suddenly cares about ratings
What the meteoric rise of Singles Day tells us about the Chinese consumer mindset
The 2010s: will we miss the decade that brought us flower crowns, sneakers and espresso martinis?
Great edition of the NYT Magazine on the future of the internet, defined by its editor as “trying to look past both the utopian and dystopian rhetoric to see the ways that the online world is already changing”
Decks haven’t made advertising any better, argues Ben Kay in a hilarious article
Regulators investigate Apple Card's algorithms for gender bias
That’s all for this week. I wanted to say thanks to those who reached out after last week’s edition! It’s really great to hear from you. And if you want to share any thoughts on this week’s edition just hit reply to this email and I’ll get back to you, or connect with me on Twitter. See you next time.
Flo
Cultural Patterns is a newsletter by Florencia Lujani about cultural insight, creativity and strategy. If you’ve enjoyed it, consider subscribing :)