Bear in mind guerrilla advertising and marketing? It’s a phrase that was bandied round loads about 10 years in the past. As social media took off and started to play a good greater function in folks’s lives, manufacturers had been seeking to seize consideration with sudden approaches.
It’s an ideal means to play to what I get pleasure from doing essentially the most – understanding what resonates. From Adidas and Diageo to my company Platform 13, my profession has been round attempting to align manufacturers with tradition and leisure.
Again then, in style, music, sport and artwork tradition, we used creativity that mirrored the world we lived in, the place information of and respect for cultures was a superpower. We flyposted as a result of we had no out-of-home media funds, did 24-hour flash shops to rid extra inventory and did collabs and actions with our pals – the cultural voices of that neighborhood – to foster and drive these new and rising cultures ahead.
Politics, media and expertise have at all times formed tradition as a result of it impacts how we behave, assume and join. Quick ahead to the mid-2020s and we’re at a tipping level: a collision and intersection of all three that’s redefining what it means to construct relevance, belief and worth as a model.
Importantly, we’re seeing an actual time shift in social media; for some time now, social has now not felt social. It’s change into a broadcast channel for its homeowners’ agendas and audiences are quietly trying out. In keeping with an evaluation of the web habits of 250,000 adults in additional than 50 nations carried out for the Monetary Occasions by GWI, time spent on social media peaked in 2022 and has since gone into regular decline. Individuals are drained. They crave connection, not sponsored posts. That means, not metrics. Relevance, not purchased attain.
As model folks, we have to drive cultural relevance (and no, that doesn’t imply a well-known particular person in your advert or leaping onto a viral ‘trending matter’) to succeed.
Organisations are pushing groups to churn out ‘always-on’ AI-generated slop masquerading as environment friendly artistic work. Even AI defines “AI slop” as mass-produced, low-quality digital content material that lacks depth, accuracy or effort. The irony writes itself.
I really feel like entrepreneurs are so centered on the pace and quantity of belongings, as a result of they assume that social-first means a lot of social outputs at tempo. This 12 months’s Cannes Lions Pageant was stuffed with AI gross sales folks touting pace and scale. Sadly, whereas this has been offered in as a measure of success, what they appear to be lacking is how audiences are actually participating (or not), each due to the present state of the social business and the way Massive Tech drives low attain as a result of platforms need funding.
There may be additionally main mistrust constructing with regards to what persons are seeing on-line by way of purchased and bot followers, deepfakes, generic content material, parasocial relationships and AI slop.
The result is that expertise and information is getting used to outline creativity, resonance, and model constructing, leading to a sea of sameness as all our lives change into influenced by tech-controlled algorithms.
How boring.
This comes as no shock to us who learn, analyse, gatekeep and work in ‘tradition’ as a result of it follows The Cultural Pipeline – a framework I introduce in my ebook, Tradition Led Manufacturers, that explains the phases of fandoms and communities in tradition.
By leaning too closely on effectivity, scale and the following shiny instrument, we’ve traded creativity for comfort, dropping which means whereas audiences have already moved into subcultures and early rising tradition utilizing new methods of connecting. These are normally locations the place Massive Knowledge and the algorithm battle, as a result of they will solely learn indicators as soon as they attain scale.
Culturally related
As model folks, we have to drive cultural relevance (and no, that doesn’t imply a well-known particular person in your advert or leaping onto a viral ‘trending matter’) to succeed. Because the ‘consideration economic system’ evolves, entrepreneurs want to search out methods to credibly have interaction followers and shoppers’ constantly past that one spike, historically achieved by way of a attain media purchase. This implies doubling down on the factor that makes your model distinctive (I name this a cultural positioning), delivering ownable and authentic artistic exercise, regardless of the advertising and marketing and comms channel.
Achieved proper, this drives model discovery (and in the end progress) by doing issues that folks need to share within the locations and areas they’re in. That’s the place creativity, craft and cultural worth stay. That’s how manufacturers earn actual resonance and relationships, not simply impressions.
A culturally related model refers to a model state when folks have interaction positively with that model, work for that model, defend it, advocate for it and purchase it, at any time, not solely in the course of the paid marketing campaign cycle. They are going to do that as a result of it deeply connects with them inside the context of what’s taking place in their very own, and the broader world, assembly them how and the place they’re, credibly.
The period of tradition led manufacturers will reward those who break the components to chop by way of.
Greatest at school for me is the latest partnership between Nike and the skate model Palace, which joined forces to open Manor Place, a free, public hub for sport, creativity and neighborhood in South London. A win for everybody, together with the regeneration of an area in-built 1895, and particularly for Nike, which is on an actual comeback following some troublesome years.
On the opposite facet of the spectrum, any model chasing the parable of ‘virality’ by leaping onto a trending matter with out that being its technique or the subject making sense for the model can appear inauthentic, quaint and cringe.
Tradition led manufacturers will reward those who break the components to chop by way of: 2026 may appear to be if-you-know-you-know gatherings the place telephones are banned, the place style, depth of matters and curation as soon as once more change into a differentiator, the place advertisements change into lengthy kind mini dramas, the place cohesive transmedia storytelling is proudly made by people not machines, and the place including worth to, not simply extracting from tradition to construct that neighborhood and fandom is the one approach ahead. We will do that by making true model cultural relevance a enterprise progress driver, utilizing it as each an goal and an final result.
Again within the day, entrepreneurs led the cost: shaping model tales and driving viewers engagement that mattered. Now too many have change into beholden to Massive Tech chasing a reactive loop of shopping for attain, chasing trending matters and navigating ever-changing algorithms and AI updates which are exhausting to maintain up with.
It’s time for entrepreneurs to cease taking part in by the principles and begin writing new ones, grounded in cultural relevance, creativity and authenticity.
The definition of the function of selling, which I agree with, was articulated nicely by Seth Matlins on the Uncensored CMO podcast: “Advertising and marketing’s job stays basically about capturing consideration and influencing attitudes and behaviours such that you just drive sustainable worthwhile progress. It’s unchanging.” The instruments and channels would possibly change however the function received’t.
And on this period of culture-led manufacturers, it could simply be time to revisit guerrilla advertising and marketing mindsets, developed and match for objective for the twenty first century.
Leila Fataar is a marketing consultant, founding father of culture-led model model constructing company Platform13 and creator of “Tradition Led Manufacturers”.
