Culture Vulture(d)

No.172:?Tue 21st?Nov?2023

Hi, it’s David here.

This week's School of Athens newsletter is written by Marielle Phillips who runs and recruits our Community. She is forever looking at what ideas and idea creators are out there that could be recruited to come and work with us here.?

Her observations on the latest Tube Girl saga and the resulting desperate attempt of the likes of Hugo Boss, and Adidas and [insert almost any brand of your choosing here] … to get on board has resulted in all of them walking away from who they are and their attempts at marketing to a so called younger audience going off the rails.

Her message to brands is simple ‘mind the gap’.

There is a very big difference between trying to jump on the culture bandwagon and being lost in it.

Last week our CSO, Nikki Crumpton, ran a Lunch and Learn in partnership with bpesearch to a room full of CMOs on the roles of Brands in Culture and the need for brands to have a Cultural Compass.?

If this would be of interest to you, get in touch and we can share some of the resources.

As always, we are curious to hear what you think

David Alberts

Co-Founder and Chief Vision Officer at BeenThere/DoneThat

Hi, it’s Marielle?here.

Culture is being vulture(d) - a term I’m coining to describe the gradual decimation of culture.?

The predator? TikTok.?

The prey? Brands.?

Dramatic? Maybe.?

If your feed resembles anything close to mine (we can talk about cats another time) you may have been choking on Tube Girl content for the past couple of months. And for anyone with no idea whom i’m referencing (congratulations there is still hope for you) Tube Girl, aka Sabrina Bahsoon, is the latest influencer to go viral for filming herself dance on the London Underground -? in an act that’s being labelled as ‘empowering’, ‘inspiring’ and even heralded as ‘the end of social anxiety’.

And just like that, I felt the world go mad.???

Fast forward to today and she has just completed a whirlwind fashion tour, sat front row for shows in London, Paris and Milan, modelled for MAC, walked in their Face Show and was the star of Hugo Boss’ digital campaign during Milan fashion week. Not to mention the untold paid partnerships with Tiffany’s, Axel Arigato, Adidas - the list goes on. Of course brand deals with creators are no new feat, but within Tik Tok especially, there is an increased sense of disconnect between brands and their endorsers.?

And as the Tik Tok beast shows no signs of being slain, there is an ever growing awareness of brand laziness, as they continually submit to its grasp and piggyback the latest viral trend. Time which I assume used to be spent on creating new digital content, is now being spent on deciphering how to become a part of what already exists. And it feels a little transparent.?

“It’s so much harder to break through all of the noise as a brand,” says Alison Bringé, chief marketing officer at Launchmetrics, a marketing and analytics platform. “In order to connect with audiences, brands are inviting individuals from across different lifestyle universes to share ideas and create content in a way that is fluid, open and personalised.”?

Reminiscent of ye olde phrase,?throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.?

“In the new attention economy, brands are battling for the greatest number of eyeballs and looking for individuals who offer a different perspective”, says Thomai Serdari, a professor of fashion and luxury marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business. For me, this is where the problem lies - brands are now battling for eyeballs rather than building a digital presence connected to their brand or what it stands for. If the?average?person is spending 151 minutes a day on social media and 95 of these minutes are spent on Tik Tok, there is a huge opportunity not only to build your digital presence, but also to start forming communities of connected and engaged users. The nicher the better. However instead, many are aligning themselves with a transitory ‘cultural’ moment (or viral trend) which is seemingly devoid of any real meaning or identity.?

But hey, views are views.?

So back to Tube Girl. “If our brand works with her (or any influencer) before anyone else, it shows that we’re in on internet culture as it’s happening. Boss acted quickly and had her on a flight to Milan within six hours” says Nadia Kokni, Hugo Boss’s SVP of global marketing and brand communications. As planned, Bahsoon’s presence at the show drove “millions of engagements from around the world” -? and yes, perhaps engagement which may have otherwise not been there.

But did it make sense?

If you are to judge the comments section as a microcosm of truth, then absolutely not. Her collaboration led to some amusing nuggets ranging from?“I just don’t get it” to?“anyone else feel like this is a scene from black mirror”?and my personal favourite?“this looked hella random”. And yes, since appointing their new CEO Daniel Grieder in 2021, Boss is now firmly aimed at the millennials, while it’s sublabel Hugo targets Gen Z - but is defaulting to whatever is trending on TikTok the best course of action when it can lead to alienation of existing consumers or pure confusion from others?

It’s undeniable that in an ever growing digital landscape dominated by social media, cultural moments will always be moving at a pace which is hard to follow. So when everyone else is?following,?brands need to?lead;?negating the race for eyeballs and creating content which feels authentic to its community. Slow and steady not only wins the race, but also more deeply connected consumers.

If we stop looking to our cultural pillars of society for influence; art, music, literature and start building work based on 30 second clips void of any substance - how can we expect the work to resonate with users beyond face value.?

I’m sure a wise man (somewhere) once said,?what you put in, is what you get out. Or something to that effect?

As part of the generation where inauthenticity is a fate worse than death, brands need to be less reactive to trends that have already had their viral moment and strive to produce work which?may?have its own. By placing more value on creating authentic content and through an intrinsic understanding of their consumers' niches they have the opportunity to create their own small(er) scale viral moments, rather than chasing after trends in a mad rush not to miss the boat. Or in this case, the tube.

Marielle Phillips

Community Manager at BeenThere/DoneThat Partner?

Supporting Articles

1. 1 million likes and counting

2. The trend spawning a new crop of creators chasing virality, in a dystopian turn of events.https://www.tiktok.com/@journeytothepage/video/7280867341888425248

3. Is the virtual world more valuable than the real world?

4. Young people can smell it a mile away if a brand doesn’t have an authentic link with their community.

We'd love to hear what you thought about this newsletter! Reply in the comments below or reach out to us! To find out more about BeenThere/DoneThat, connect with us on LinkedIn or visit our Website. If you'd like to receive The School of Athens weekly newsletter on every Friday directly to your inbox, subscribe here. If you'd like to get in touch about working with us or to hear more about what we do, email [email protected]