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The Secret Sauce to Engaging The Youth
LADbible is shaking up the world of original content, with shows such as Snack Wars and Agree to Disagree, featuring stars like Sabrina Carpenter, Margot Robbie, Austin Butler and Bukayo Saka helping to rack up the views. With more than 3 million subscribers on their flagship channel and nearly half a billion views this year, they’re […]
On The Radar
Here’s our pick of fresh cultural insights from Chris Danton at In Good Co. This month: Skims challenges awareness norms, tech’s “f*ck around and find out” era begins, and Starbucks rethinks the art of footfall Culture I GOT CENSORED// Skims launched a campaign with Olivia Munn for Breast Cancer Awareness. The images show Munn’s mastectomy […]
Stigma, Taboo and The Impact of a Bold Brand Idea
Real-life snapshots of postpartum mums recently captured attention across the UK. Billboard ads of sweat-drenched, exhausted women fresh from the battle of the labour room, and eating Burger King as their first meal, fueled controversy and sparked debate. The “Bundle of Joy” campaign, created by BBH London, divided the industry, causing a rainbow of responses […]
THE TIME HAS COME FOR D2C FANDOM
Here James Kirkham, Founder of ICONIC and head of brand at Cleats Club, writes about the evolving dynamics of fandom and why the launch of a new direct-to-fan platform will give fans access to the kind of experiences that they want with their favourite athletes, minus all the interruptions. Cleats Club is a direct-to-fan […]
Cultural Stagnation
How Can Brands Overcome it? Thought-starters from Ollie Oshodi Cultural consultant, Ollie Oshodi, shares insights for marketers on moving culture forward and avoiding getting stuck on repeat. After a brat summer where Charli XCX successfully repackaged indie sleaze for a new generation, Elijah called out UK radio stations for overlooking Black British music in favour […]
BA goes to Bridgerton
“An Original British Period Drama” | Brand: British Airways | Agency: Uncommon Creative Studio | Date: July 2024 The background: “Hello and welcome aboard.” When Air New Zealand introduced hobbits into their safety videos back in 2014, the gauntlet was thrown for airlines to come up with entertaining safety videos that used humour and cultural […]
What do we think about social trends this Autumn? Not so demure.
What do we think about social trends this Autumn? Not so demure. What do sausages, salad cream and Sadiq Khan all have in common? The answer: a Brat Summer. From neon-green packaging to pro-Ulez posts, Charli XCX has become one of this summer’s biggest marketing moment. Alongside Sabrina Carpenter; Chappell Roan; Tinashe; Addison Rae; and […]
How AI will help brands become more culturally relevant
Let’s start with how AI ‘thinks’ about culture. Culture is a complex adaptive system, interdependent with the actions and reactions people make to different prompts within it. Their reactions are coded based on their individual senses of identities (yes their plural identities, more on that later), their personal values, attitudes and beliefs and also their […]
Guest Columnist
BARBIE’S “OSCARS” Earlier this year, Mattel’s Barbie movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards (or Oscars), and took home one. Now, heading into the “Oscars of Advertising”–The Cannes Lions Awards–will the film that painted last summer pink fare better at this event? As a consequence of oversharing my opinions about the Barbie movie, I was […]
The Culture Marketing Chat
Culture campaigns… culture-led brands “We create culture”. One thing our industry can agree on in 2024 is that we love to talk culture. But sure as culture changes and evolves, so has our use of the term, culture marketing, that has kicked around for well over a decade and has at times become shorthand for […]
Culture Case: Sweethearts
CULTURE CASE Here’s our pick of a brand that successfully created a cultural moment. The brand: Sweethearts The cultural moment: Romance, relationships and dating What’s going on here: ‘Situationships’ was a term coined by Cosmopolitan a few years ago to describe a new relationship status where couples were getting (ahem!) physical but hadn’t labelled it […]
A Brand’s Story
Culture Starts at Home: A Brand’s story This month’s column comes from Matt Watson, ECD at PepsiCo’s in-house creative agency Sips & Bites Europe. Culture starts at home It might seem obvious, but it’s still worth repeating: in today’s media landscape it’s more important than ever for brands to connect in deeper, more meaningful ways […]
The Double Take: K-Culture
Each month we invite two experts from the fabulously well-informed B&C community to take a second look at a recent brand and culture story to help us understand what it means, why it’s important, and, crucially – what can brands learn from it? This month’s special guests James Kirkham, co-founder of Iconic, and Leila Fataar, […]
A CMO’s Story
Breaking with routine, accelerating with culture: a CMO’s story Let me take you back a few years. It’s deep in lockdown, but I’m not on furlough. I am the CMO of Jaguar Land Rover’s just-launched car rental business which obviously wasn’t seeing the strongest trading numbers. Despite no one going anywhere soon, we had to […]
The Double Take: LVMH
Each month we invite two experts from the fabulously well-informed B&C community to take a second look at a recent brand and culture story to help us understand what it means, why it’s important, and, crucially – will it work? This month: LVMH goes to Hollywood This month’s special guests: Dino Myers-Lamptey, founder, The Barber […]
On The Radar
😎 If you’re too busy to keep track of what’s cool, hot or happening, our chums over at In Good Co, produce a weekly newsletter called Good Thinking. It’s a treasure trove of best-of-the-best culture, trends and general brand magic cleverness. Here’s a selection of our favourites from this month… We’re all loving love triangles […]
Culture Case: Beats
The background: a world of unrest It’s 2020. The sound of the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is at its peak, but most brands are avoiding the issue. They either fear being seen as overly political, or they’re preoccupied with the challenge of sustaining a business through a period of global upheaval. But this […]