The Power of Cultural Innovation: Why Brands Must Become Mythmakers

Cultural Innovation

Similar to the word ‘insight’, the term ‘innovation’ has been bandied around so much that we’ve lost sight of its original meaning. But if we ask McKinsey and Partners to refresh our memories, we learn that innovation refers to the creation and implementation of novel solutions that generate substantial value. These new solutions might be economic, social, or environmental.

So, to keep things broadly equivalent, let’s just say that a cultural innovation is the creation and application of a novel ideology that generates substantial value.

Why Cultural Innovation is the Key to Brand Growth Today

In my two and a half decades in the branding business, I’ve learned that culture impacts the fortunes of brands far more than many of us in marketing realize.

When I got my first job as a market research consultant, brands were straightforward creatures confined to categories. Sliced bread perfected breakfasts. Hotels sold slumber. Milk builds strong bones. Strategy was a straight shot for that magic USP bullet.

Outside of some egghead anthropologists, we marketing folk didn’t utter the C-word much. Culture was the stuff of art galleries and foreign films.

In truth, it took Don Draper to reveal culture’s mystical influence to me when he pitched the Lucky Strike cigarette account in the pilot of HBO’s Made Men series. Draper told the company men at RJ Reynolds that advertising wasn’t about differentiated product benefits—it was about happiness. The smell of a new car. The feeling of freedom. It’s the reassurance that, whatever you are doing, you are OK. In other words, it's about ideas, ideals, and cultural identity.

Culture Is The Water We Swim In

Author David Foster Wallace joked that fish are oblivious to the water in which they swim. And just like all the water in the ocean, culture envelops us so completely that we can’t perceive its influence. It defines what people view as normal, aspirational, or aggravating. 

Brands that recognize culture's undercurrents gain a tremendous advantage. They evolve from mere products into symbols that signal identity and shape meaning.

Cultural Activism: How Dove Disrupted Beauty

Dove rode this wave deftly. Dove had long promoted beauty products for women, but in the 2000s, Unilever recognized the distress caused by suffocating beauty standards. Dove repositioned itself as a culture warrior, championing “real beauty” across all shapes and sizes.

Dove didn’t change its product formulation—it changed its cultural stance through what’s called cultural innovation. Sales skyrocketed as women supported a brand that told them they were as beautiful as they were. Dove gained an edge by competing on ideas, not soap and lotion.

Identity Symbols:  How Apple Found Its Groove

When Apple birthed the iPod in 2001, it ignited a cultural wildfire beyond just music. The iPod brand came to represent creativity and progress. The iconic white earbuds became a fashion statement. Apple imbued technology with meaning and became a trillion-dollar titan.

​​Cultural Currents - How Strong Brands Use The Shifts Beneath The Surface

Cultural connection drives preference, which is why, today, we’re seeing cultural innovation wielded across industries:

- Allbirds taps sustainability values with natural materials and carbon labels. This focus propelled the company’s market cap to $4.1 billion by the time it went public in 2021.

- Tesla conjured the idea that cars could be symbols of progress again. Their cultural branding helped them dominate luxury EVs with a 65+% market share in the US.

- GoPro tapped into aspirations around adventure and documenting experiences from an athlete’s perspective.

- Gucci imbued luxury with irreverence and gender fluidity, winning over younger generations.

These pioneering brands demonstrate the opportunity of cultural innovation: compete on culture, win on emotion. As neuromarketing author Martin Lindstrom writes, “Emotionally driven buyers pay a 200% premium over rational buyers.” Culture speaks to our hearts. Features speak to our heads.

According to Kantar's 2022 Meaningful Brands report, 60% of consumers said they feel a closer affinity for brands that positively impact society and the environment. The study found brands perceived as culturally relevant and purpose-driven saw stronger consumer devotion, recommendation, and retention. Kantar’s Keith Weed stated, “Our research has found that a brand’s environmental, social, and cultural impact is now of equal importance in driving brand equity as product benefits and economic drivers.”

Culture Can Be a Bit Complicated

By definition, culture is complex and messy because it intertwines our aspirations with our anxieties. But while it’s undeniably important to marketers, how can they best harness its power? Thought leaders like Douglas Holt suggest that brands need to act anthropologically—observing people to uncover unmet needs, then crafting brand mythology that taps into those cultural gaps.

This process necessitates moving beyond features and benefits. Brand owners must become cultural architects, identifying societal tensions and then weaving stories in which their brand is the protagonist in addressing those tensions. The resultant cultural resonance produces halo effects, which elevate even functional characteristics. Benefits take their lead from mythology and ideology.

Hard Data Now Dominates But Often To Its Detriment

Adopting a cultural innovation perspective is difficult for established brands. Legacy corporations often dismiss the squishy notion of culture. And many technology firms downplay culture as too fuzzy for their data-driven methods.

But make no mistake, culture remains the strongest force steering human behavior. Brands that compete through cultural innovation—in the marketplace of ideas—will win over those stuck competing on products alone. The future belongs to brands that shape culture rather than just mirror it.

Somewhere along the way, hard metrics surpassed culture's soft power. However, at Catalyst, we believe that cultural innovation remains one of today's most significant untapped branding opportunities. The most astute brands will figure out how to swim with, rather than against, these powerful cultural currents.

Cultural Innovation Requires A Three Step Strategy

So how does a brand begin innovating culturally? Here are three simple steps:

1. Spot Cultural Gaps - Analyze media and trends to identify unresolved societal tensions and desires.

2. Craft Cultural Mythology - Create stories and experiences that address those gaps in a meaningful way. 

3. Embed Your Brand Purpose - Make your brand the protagonist in driving cultural change.

Spotting The Right Shifts

Brand teams should look widely to identify emerging cultural tensions. Here are some of our key sources, but no doubt readers will find more and better ways to discover them. 

The goal is a broad view across media, data, academic theory, and real-world observation. This helps spot important cultural contradictions and opportunities for brands to fill gaps. Regular monitoring and an openness to exploring beyond the surface are key.

- Social listening - Analyze conversations on social media and in online communities to reveal desires, anxieties, and conflicts. 

- Immersive research - Ethnographic techniques like interviews and observations provide deep cultural insights.

- Trend reports - Research firms spot early shifts in values and behaviors. 

- Thought leaders - Influential voices across academics, media, and culture comment on unresolved social issues.

- Fringe movements - Radical and counterculture groups reveal tensions within the mainstream. 

CONTRO Cultural Innovation Framework

Once you’ve identified some cultural tensions to explore further, you might consider filtering them through a simple framework that we use to identify the best opportunities for cultural innovation. Of course, culture shifts continuously, so this process never really ends.

Contradiction: What’s the unresolved cultural tension that we’ve identified?

Relevance: Is this relevant to the people we serve with our brand?

Resonance: How deeply do they feel this issue emotionally?

Opportunity: How might our brand authentically address this issue for them?

Innovate or Die

Cultural innovation must become one of the most important compasses for brand builders today. Companies that cling to yesterday’s model of features and functions will lose ground. 

Brands that shape culture will own the future. And this will require abandoning legacy metrics that reduce brands to products and transactions. We need to reframe branding as cultural architecture—designing culturally rich experiences that tap into a collective narrative.

Big Tech and Big Box retailing represent short-term profits but a long-term race to the bottom for brands, trapping them in commodified markets where they wither rather than in idea markets where they can thrive.

Culture is the new competitive battlefield. Brands that resonate culturally enjoy unparalleled devotion. Those that remain passive cultural bystanders will eventually lose momentum and pricing power.

To us, the choice is straightforward: either lead culture or be led by culture. There’s no middle ground. Paired with Experience Innovation, Cultural Innovation must be a non-negotiable imperative for all forward-thinking brands.