Culture's having a party, is your brand invited?

Don’t activate your brand in culture. Activate culture in your brand.

Often brands look to gain fame and relevance by trying to ‘activate’ the brand in culture.

Time and time again the brief looks like this: “How can we get people to engage with our brand in the cultural scene they’re into?”

The truth is, it doesn’t work this way. People won’t, and don’t, engage with a brand because it’s doing something in their cultural scene. They engage with the culture and if part of their scene happens to come from a brand, then cool, welcome to the party.

While this sounds like nuance, the difference is radical. The right brief should look more like this: “How do we get our brand to become a more meaningful part of the cultural scene?”

Generally speaking most brands will never write this brief, because it doesn’t feel like it’s putting the brand’s needs first. But that’s exactly the point. After all, the cool kids at the party aren’t the ones saying how cool they are… they’re the ones making sure the party is cool.