Why we buy what we buy.

The Next Big Idea Daily newsletter?(SUBSCRIBE) ?is written by me,?Michael Kovnat , and gathers insights from today’s leading non-fiction authors. It’s a companion to our?Next Big Idea Daily ?podcast, available on?Apple ?or?Spotify .

Are you a Mac or a PC? A pickup truck or a Tesla? Miller Lite or a craft IPA?

I'm sure you have many good reasons for buying the things you do. You make rational choices based on the price and performance of your electronics, or the flavor and relative healthfulness of your food and drink. I know I do.

But maybe I can admit that some of what I'm doing when purchasing is firming up my identity, making a statement to the world and to myself that this is the kind of person I am. I'm a Subaru guy. You'll never catch me drinking a Bud. I'm definitely more of a Mac.

Anyone who remembers the iconic "I'm a Mac" ads that Apple ran between 2006 and 2009 knows the power of identity marketing. They nailed the message that Windows-based computers were for square, drab guys in ill-fitting suits. Apple products were for us cool kids -- laid-back, creative, interesting. It was a key moment in Apple's evolution from small manufacturer of pricey toys to burgeoning object of cult-like devotion, and eventually to multi-trillion dollar enterprise, one of the most valuable businesses in the world.

Hear Marcus Collins predict the future of brands:

This remarkable confluence between commerce, culture, and identity is at the heart of the new book For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be by Dr. Marcus Collins , my guest this week on the Next Big Idea Daily podcast. Marcus is both a working marketer (head of strategy at Wieden+Kennedy New York) and a working academic (professor of marketing at the University of Michigan).?Along the way, he's developed campaigns for the likes of Beyoncé, the Brooklyn Nets, Nike, and Apple. For Marcus, the key thing to understand for marketers (or really for anyone trying to persuade anyone of anything) is culture.

Over the course of our conversations , we got into what culture is , how it works , and how it makes us buy what we buy . Whether you're trying to convince someone of an idea, get people to vote for a candidate, or convince your children to eat their vegetables, you almost certainly have something to learn from Marcus. And buying his book might just shore up your own identity as a smart, engaged consumer.

Next week...

Get wild with me as I speak with adventure journalist Shelby Stanger , podcast host and author of Will to Wild: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life.

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