It’s time for big brands to embrace "cultural relevance", says Leila Fataar, founder of Platform13. This means culture-led strategy coming to the forefront, upstream with brand and business strategy. It’s time to evolve the traditional brand playbook to update that funnel and make it fit for purpose in the 21st century.

Culture is the stuff of life, living and breathing, always changing and evolving. Culture is a reflection of reality and a global connector of intersectional communities. It's how we communicate, what we wear, eat, see and listen to. It’s how we behave and what/who influences us, permeating every part of our lives. For brands and businesses, cultural shifts impact us all – you, your stakeholders, your employees, and especially your fans and consumers (core, target, latent and potential) – evolving their behaviours and mindsets. For me, a culturally relevant brand refers to a brand state when people engage positively with that brand, work for that brand, advocate for it and buy it, at any time (not only during the paid campaign cycle). They will do this because it deeply connects with them within the context of what is happening in their own, and the wider world, meeting them how and where they are, credibly. Done well, a brand can transcend its category and become part of or even shape culture. These are modern brands, culture-led brands.

The past few years have proven what we, who have worked in ‘culture’ for a while, have known for the longest time – that the nuance, context and interconnectedness of geopolitics, the climate emergency and social justice, the narrative around it driven and spread by both the mainstream news outlets and social media truth-tellers has and is shifting global dynamics never before seen in history. 2024 is shaping up to be a pivotal moment in history, setting the scene for supercharged unpredictability. Set against this background, the pace of technological advances in AI, Web3, mixed reality media and spatial computing is accelerating marketing, product and commerce innovation, upending traditional brand management like never before. Successful brands need to be able to credibly tap into cultural nuances to become and stay relevant and adapt for growth and/or even survival.

Having worked on the brand side at adidas and Diageo, 7 years ago, I created Platform13 to answer challenges faced by big brands in the ever-changing world of consumer behaviour, technology advancements, creative innovation and the swiftly moving cultural landscape. Since inception, our project teams have been curated, assembling world-class experts and cultural voices matched to our clients' territories, categories and target audiences to answer their specific challenges, needs and objectives. This helps us read and analyse cultural shifts specific to both our clients and their audiences through real-world insights, then create and/or flex our clients' plans accordingly. To do that all our work starts (and continues) with our pioneering methodology, a "cultural positioning" for the brand. This unique cultural positioning involves aligning the brand (and/or its products and services) with all its audiences and communities by understanding the global issues impacting them, and unlocking the brand's special role and place to those audiences in their lives and in the world – importantly, this is a role that only that brand can fulfil. We then execute this cultural positioning hand in hand with these cultural voices, grabbing the right attention with the right creative for the audiences and building relevance through resonance (and therefore shareability) with all audiences.

__Guinness x Notting Hill Carnival__

A good example is the work I and Platform13 did for Guinness. The brand has been exported to the West Indies since the 1800s, and is as much part of Caribbean culture as Irish culture. I knew this from my time as the first Head of Culture & Entertainment at Diageo…and a visit to the wonderful archive as well as through friends and cultural institutions like Notting Hill Carnival, which I have been attending since I arrived in London almost 30 years ago. For Carnival’s 50th birthday in 2016, we (myself and Boiler Room – a pioneering global online music streaming service) wanted to show the positive side to an event that has stood for diversity and love for 50 years. With Guinness and their then tagline, ‘made of more’, legend was born. A content series of Interviews and broadcasting from 8 original sound systems at Carnival that weekend, merch that went viral and our own sound system hand in hand with Deviation, we told the stories of the people who made and make 50-year-old Carnival what it is, those people who are ‘made of more’ and those standing up for one of London's most loved, culturally important and events today. The results: 36m reached globally, across 2 days, and 100m+ earned PR impressions. A personal and career highlight.

After leaving Diageo to set up Platform13, I continued working with the brand on a number of projects. With increased interest in heritage after the global BLM movement, in 2021, Platform13 created a new cultural platform for the brand with real people and real stories at the heart. Part of this was partnering with people from communities where Guinness is deeply embedded as part of their culture, to tell their story, their way. So, for the Jamaican community, around the year that Carnival did not happen (2021), we wanted to celebrate with cultural voices, Caribbean food sensations, Original Flava (the wonderful Craig & Shaun) and their amazing Nanny (RIP), who used Guinness in her cooking for years. Key for us was Nanny front and centre in the campaign as the inspiration for her grandsons, proudly standing under her statement “My husband love him Guinness Punch”. A city-wide poster campaign, (including in their home town of Croydon) on Carnival weekend and a social first three-part mini-series featuring Nanny’s annual BBQ and recipes for Guinness Jerk Chicken and Guinness Punch drove social organic impact as the community felt seen (and commented and shared accordingly). The paid social campaign also performed exceedingly well, achieving 59% over planned reach. This is because we achieved a lower CPM than planned. The Diageo media agency believed that was because the audience targeting we used for the campaign was more likely to resonate with the ads.

Obviously, this type of work can build positive impact for the brand, drive meaning and loyalty, and if leveraged respectfully, can ultimately drive sustainable, meaningful, impactful, equitable, and lasting business growth. This is how we mitigate risk internally and drive reach and relevance, hype and depth, numbers and nuance externally. But this also means that your brand playbook and how your organisation is set up needs to evolve, involving utilising ongoing cultural intelligence as a tool for innovation in marketing, moving beyond traditional insights for mere validation. It requires reevaluating procurement processes in order to work with new types of external partners, like Platform13, in order to embrace new approaches rooted in culture, credibly. Only then can a brand remain culturally relevant and avoid fading into the background.

__Practical steps to take__

- Invest in your Cultural Positioning to identify the unique role your brand and/or your product/service plays in the lives of your audiences and the world. This enables you to tap into your audience's RELEVANT passion areas, credibly and RELEVANT for the brand, and helps to mitigate risk and drive resonance with your audiences and create a culture-led strategy for your brand and your business.
- Ensure ongoing cultural intelligence using real-world insights through the lens of your cultural positioning can support decision-making on short-term trends as well as how to address cultural shifts.
- Reassess procurement processes to open the gates to new types of partners and new perspectives.

WARC cover image

WARC, SEPTEMBER 24

In a world where social media has democratized access to information, everyone has a voice. But with this surge in public opinion, do we still need critics? 

Historically, critics were the gatekeepers, determining what was worthy of our attention and what wasn't. They held the power to shape—positively and negatively—cultural conversations. But today, as we navigate an overwhelming flood of information and opinions, the critic's role seems less defined. Social media allows anyone to share their thoughts instantly, creating a feedback loop where every voice—whether informed or not—competes for attention. Simultaneously, we’ve created an environment where opinion and identity are deeply connected. You’re either wrong or right, left or right, good or bad. This digital dialogue, driven by algorithms that thrive on conflict, often lacks nuance and depth and favors the loudest voices over the most reflective ones.

The shift in media dynamics has further complicated the landscape. As publications increasingly rely on advertisers, the boundary between critique and promotion has blurred. Reviews have become more about "show and tell" than offering the critical frameworks that once helped us place works within the broader context of culture. Is traditional criticism less relevant due to the sheer volume of opinions we encounter daily, or has the respect for traditional media diminished? 

Despite these changes, the fundamental role of the critic remains the same: to help us forge connections and view things through a new lens. Whether in fashion, visual arts, or music, critics provide the frameworks we need to navigate the complex world of ideas. While it's encouraging that so many people are passionate about sharing their opinions, this doesn't necessarily mean they are engaging in true criticism. The distinction between opinion and criticism is crucial, as the latter requires a depth of knowledge and an ability to contextualize that goes beyond simply stating a viewpoint.

In today's ever-changing media landscape, what is the role of the critic? And how can we redefine criticism in a way that remains relevant and impactful? 

We asked three experts for their perspectives on the fragmentation of the media landscape, the importance of criticism and whether media can be critical. 

__How has the role of criticism changed?__

![HURS ARTICLE IMAGE 1](//images.ctfassets.net/5ohv6xfzcgbs/aZqWMtPsgQC8Q6GopkKsK/f7883482240b75db82eca99e618c3403/IMG_1839-2.PNG)

__Who gets to be and critic and how?__

![Hours article image 2](//images.ctfassets.net/5ohv6xfzcgbs/5N5OMQ5GRWOXnFez9TozHk/0dfeb25d9a900a5a237db23ab79b7e7b/pic_2.PNG)

__Why is criticism important?__

![Hours article image 3](//images.ctfassets.net/5ohv6xfzcgbs/4OwRRlbbD5hUcRrnf8J1Un/2459809870665f590d579825fc1989fc/pic_3.PNG)

__How can criticism be beneficial?__

![Hours article image 4](//images.ctfassets.net/5ohv6xfzcgbs/JsC40OdH39fahkHiNgtap/ea772f08889be719055ab91bff82b2f8/pic_4.PNG)

__Can media be critical?__

![Hours article image 5](//images.ctfassets.net/5ohv6xfzcgbs/4Fpt9m0cLKHvaJSOoWZmHv/66ac2f1253c39a439064fc3cdc40e038/Pic_5.PNG)

HURS - ARTICLE - COVER

Hurs, SEPTEMBER 24

__From a cultural perspective, how would you distinguish a ritual from a habit or routine?__

I define it in three different ways: One, personal characteristics, including gender and sexuality and inherited culture. Where you're born, your religion, the codes of your birth and heritage are part of this. For example, if you're born Muslim, you have your five-prayers-a-day ritual. If you're in New Zealand, you have the Haka as a ritual. These things can also be connected by place, like New Zealand, so these are non-selected characteristics.

The second is selected cultures or fandoms. So sneakers, music, the things that you choose that say something about who you are and adds to your inherited identity. It can go from overarching cultures like sport to specific cultures like K-Pop. These intertwined cultural lenses impact how your consumers see your brand but it's hard for brands because you can’t put these into neat little boxes. This is where culture-led brands, cultural marketing and cultural ways of doing things are nuanced.

The third is internal culture and rituals that are selected for you. For example, work processes and policies.

In all of these there are rituals and habits. Rituals can be personal and/or can be through fandom - these feel more emotional. Habits are more process-driven or part of routine. These help your life but aren’t connected emotionally. That's how I would differentiate between rituals and habits. I always question habits. I reflect and relook at them to ensure they aren’t there just for the sake of being there. You have to look at habits and routines all the time, making sure that they’re optimised, whereas rituals feel more considered and purpose-orientated.

__What impact do different macro and micro contexts have when you're thinking about rituals and how they influence behaviour?__

I don't think people realise the impact of politics and policies, nor of the adoption of technology and the media, which can add to ritualistic behaviour. These impact and influence behaviour and mindsets. People don't give this enough weight when it comes to marketing. Sports fandom is an example of this. On the other hand, today with the speed of tech adoption, new gen rituals are being formed and shared at the speed of light.

That's what a cultural brand is. They’re not only looking at the consumer insights and data on how people are shopping and buying; they’re exploring the context around them culturally and the lenses they look through to discover why they choose what they want to buy. These macro situations aren't as macro as we think. What our government decides impacts us all. Politics and laws impact policies that further affect people’s day-to-day lives. That’s not as far away as people always think it is from actions on the ground.

__Do you see any differences between some of the more modern rituals that have emerged in the last decade, versus some of the more traditional ones?__

I say many new ones are technology-based because new technologies are shifting ritualistic behaviour from real life to online. They’re also impacting how they intersect, support and enhance each other. The pandemic forced us all to evolve our rituals, because suddenly everything shifted in terms of behaviours. Whether it was people working remotely versus not, for example. Some of these shifts are still relevant today. Everything is also much faster at the moment. We're seeing rituals being developed, at scale, versus 10 years ago when they’d take longer to settle down. We didn't have the shareability and communication to do things like developing rituals in real-time.

__Thinking about how rituals catch on, how do they influence consumer purchase behaviour?__

Rituals are really important because it adds an emotional or cultural connection to the functionality of the product. It also connects fans together and attaches a storyline to it. If that’s a positive impact, it will be shared wider and as we all know, people trust people. And that means that if your brand is relevant, and people share it positively, it definitely helps with that purchase decision. This works in most categories where fandom or connection thrives. Brands can also both create new or enhance fan created rituals - both have to be done with deep insider knowledge of that culture.

__How can marketers apply some of these ideas around rituals in their planning, research or thinking?__

Sometimes, within our industry, there's a lack of real-world insights. Ethnographic, digital observations and conversations can get you into a much richer territory than reports of learnings from past behaviour (consumer focused only).

It’s not just about the behaviour, it’s about why it’s like that. Marketers need to be able to dig deep into this, beyond the consumer data or traditional consumer insights. You can only do this well by talking to and working with people who have life experience and have real-world insights and figure out the rituals that connect them together – we call this cultural intelligence.

For anything that we do for any of our clients and brands, we curate the team making sure that there's lived experience in the research and strategy. Everything is rooted in the audiences and the cultural communities that they want to talk to. No assumptions are made – sometimes a simple conversation with people within that community can really make the difference.

__Are there any differences in how you observe rituals in our modern digital media and social media landscape?__

We've recently been exploring digital semiotics for a variety of passion areas and the differences for new generations. This involves looking at how fan culture is changing through online communities, enabling scale and crossing over of cultures. Today, fans are no longer passive - they are creators developing new rituals all the time. Take football - what people paint on their faces, the flags they fly, the jerseys they wear and where they watch and engage with the game has changed significantly.

__How do rituals catch on differently today in the digital and social world versus how they used to catch on before?__

It's interesting because we see today that rituals happen with people. Sometimes, you didn't know that they used the brand a certain way. Making sure that you've tapped into what your audience is doing with your brand is interesting. Sometimes it's not the brand saying ‘This is going to be the ritual’. Sometimes it's already created and you have to identify how you can enhance that ritual. Sometimes, your brand's ritual has been created without any strategy or thought, and that's fun too.

It's a two-way street. If you've tapped into cultural intelligence and your audience in a real-world way, they are probably doing something with your brand that you haven't even thought of. And with fandom, being global and online, these rituals, if they work, can catch on, almost overnight.

__How can marketers create new rituals as well as identify existing rituals to tap into? How would you advise marketers who are trying to evaluate these two options?__

It’s a case of how you bring these two things together.

It’s back to that cultural positioning. The starting point to answer: What are those deep insights that are important to your community and cultural audience? What do they need your brand for, and how do you bring them together? You want to have a conversation with people who are fans of your brand. They want to be involved in co-creating new rituals. That's the future of brands and their consumers. Talk to them, and create something together. Then it's already got the weight of the audience you're trying to talk to.

__What are the risks or rewards for marketers who participate in rituals?__

I think the risks are far and wide and exist everywhere for marketers. I would be careful when it comes to assumptions. Being able to have the right people in the room is going to mitigate risk.

Sometimes you see that creative and strategy teams don’t have the people in the room that they want to talk to. These people constitute those with lived experience of what you're trying to do, the audience you're trying to reach or the product you're trying to promote. It’s important to make sure that their input is taken on board because they're the ones who are going to be not only consuming your goods but sharing it widely too within their communities.

We call these people cultural voices. We use them because they’re the voices that influence cultural difference. They are voices who are shaping and shifting that community or whatever that culture might be. Having them in the room up front means you get the required nuggets of gold to create rituals that are truly representative of the brand community.

__What examples have you seen of brands who understand rituals and have that all important cultural intelligence you mentioned?__

Guinness is a great example. You wait for the surge and that slows everything down. That can become a really beautiful place to slow you down, to connect with yourself or someone. Where it wins, is where you find the sweet spot that only that brand can do. I call it a cultural positioning and it's where I start all my work. That was specific to that brand with the Guinness Surfer ad which doubled down on ‘Good things come to those who wait’. It is still one of the best ads ever made. For me, this is still a type of ritual – about taking a breath while you wait for your Guinness to settle – it’s cultural and emotional.

In a post 2020 world, inherited culture has become much more important and in our diverse world, things like dual heritage and what that means from a ritualistic point of view is as important as representation. It’s important to do this authentically. The context and nuance really matters when it comes to rituals.

WARC, SEPTEMBER '24

Agency group Common Interest aims to fill a gap in marketing where cultural authenticity trumps appropriation.

If that sounds surprising in an industry that touts cultural reflection, remember that hits like the marketing for the Barbie movie are rare exceptions. Indeed, marketing often flirts with culture but rarely delivers.

Harsh? Maybe, but for every Barbie, there are countless flops that miss the cultural zeitgeist entirely. Bud Light, PepsiCo, Balenciaga, Burger King, Peloton — even these revered brands with savvy marketers have had their share of tone-deaf attempts to reflect culture in recent years.

Suddenly, Common Interest’s pitch starts to make perfect sense.

Of course, every agency aims for that. Where the group’s leaders hopes to stand out is in the execution. Founder Anthony Freedman, a former Havas regional chair, knows CMOs want to steward culturally relevant brands but struggle to sell it in the boardroom. As a result, marketing often gets dragged into an efficiency-driven race to the bottom. But it doesn’t have to be.

“One key thing we’re trying to do with Common Interest is to provide CMOs with the business case they need to develop, support and then measure a strategy that’s based on building cultural relevance,” Freedman said.

To do this, they’re focusing on weaving together a network of businesses that provide CMOs with the insights to understand culture and the tools to create content that earns its own media, rather than relying solely on paid reach.

So far, this consists of three businesses: brand consultants-cum-management experts TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, acquired last year; Otherway, the creative studio acquired in April; and CultureLab, the cultural intelligence platform launched in the spring. By the end of the year, there could be a few more to add to this list.

There is already one on the horizon, with Common Interest planning to launch another creative company later this year. Over the next year or so there could be another three deals.

“At that point we could have seven to eight businesses within the group with several hundred people across the U.K. and the U.S.,” said Freedman. “There are a few deals we’re looking at now.”

He’s unsurprisingly coy on the details, not just out of caution, but because it’s difficult to pin down the type of business he wants for Common Interest. They’re not the typical targets for marketing services groups. Think beyond the usual suspects — those in brand, entertainment, tech, and modern media. Discussions with several such companies have already taken place.

“We’re not trying to build another marketing services holding company,” said Freedman. “Instead, the idea is to create something that operates where brand meets entertainment, technology and modern media. To that end we want companies that will enable us to operate in those spaces, including some that are founded in entertainment, but can also be leveraged for brands.”

On that latter point, he’s eyeing companies in one of the more interesting and potentially lucrative trends in media today: branded entertainment. Slowly but surely, major advertisers are becoming entertainment financiers, getting their brands in front of people beyond the typical ad break — whether it’s between TV shows or social media posts. “We think it’s likely we will have an entertainment division because part of our strategy is to develop intellectual property and entertainment formats of our own,” said Freedman. This way, Common Interest has more credibility in convincing CMOs they can create their own entertainment.

There are two businesses the group believes could help with this: one is a startup they’re looking to invest in, the other is a business they’re looking to acquire — both straddling advertising and entertainment that Freedman declined to name.

“These companies will be built around people with ideas and an ambition to create original content that exists to entertain,” said Freedman. “We have a strong network to help both realize that ambition as well as find an audience for those ideas. We also build much more credibility to help brands operating in popular culture if we’re also operating as part of the entertainment industry.”

More broadly, the group’s credibility seems to be doing just fine. In fact, conversations are already happening with some clients about working with its businesses across the group rather than separately.

It’s a testament to how far Common Interest has come since its launch last September. __“What’s important to note is that cultural relevance goes beyond entertainment or a relevant celebrity in your ad,” said Diageo’s former head of culture and entertainment Leila Fataar, who now runs her own agency Platform13. “We are in a world of radical transformation. With consumer attention the fiercest it’s ever been, a fragmented media (digital and virtual) landscape, new commerce models driven by intuitive Web3 behaviors, and AI gone mainstream, the traditional funnel is no longer fit for purpose.”__

Clearly, Common Interest is being positioned to run counter to marketing’s obsession with quantification. Yet, the group’s bosses don’t dismiss those ideas completely. They know that paid performance, for instance, is important to amplify certain ideas for more reach, but they’re not driven by those metrics. Not when so much of that is controlled and increasingly commodities by the technology platforms themselves these days. It’s up to marketers to come up with strong ideas that can exist in spite of all that.
“We’re much more an origination business than a functional implementation business,” said Freedman.

This won’t be for every marketer, and he knows it. In many ways, it’s a niche play.

“Our strategy is not to try to persuade CMOs that are not inclined to think about things in this way to spend budget with Common Interest,” said Freedman. “We’re here to create a new and different option for CMOs who have already come to the conclusion that cultural relevance is a competitive advantage.”

He’s really talking about those marketers who have reached that point in their careers where they recognize the importance of building a strong brand. For many, the pandemic was a moment of clarity. Brand advertising was the key that enabled companies to corkscrew through the inflationary period of the past two years. Time and again, CEOs mentioned on conference calls how the strength of their brands allowed them to pass inflation costs to consumers. Not paid advertising. Not programmatic. Brand strength.

__“It’s a tough job,” said Fataar, who has written a book ‘Culture Led Brands’ on this topic. “Done right, it’s emotional, it makes people feel something by driving both reach and relevance, hype and depth, pulling people to your brand, not pushing your brand on people.”__

DIGIDAY, JUNE 2024, COVER IMAGE

DIGIDAY, JULY 2024