Culture Isn’t New. But It’s Time We Treat It Like a Discipline.

But if you ask ten marketers what “culture” means, you’ll probably get twelve answers. For some, it’s shorthand for multicultural marketing. For others, it’s synonymous with trends -- what’s hot right now.

At the ANA, we wanted to get underneath that. So we partnered with Dr. Marcus Collins -- author of For the Culture and one of marketing’s most respected cultural thinkers -- to take a more rigorous look at how marketers define, measure, and act on culture in their brand strategies.

The result is our new report, The Impact of Culture on Brand Building. And it surfaces a paradox that defines our moment: everyone agrees culture matters, but few have figured out how to operationalize it.

Culture Is Universal -- Yet Unevenly Practiced

Eighty-eight percent of the 160 marketers and agency leaders the ANA surveyed said it’s “important” or “very important” for brands to engage in culture.

That’s about as close to consensus as you get in marketing.

Yet fewer than one in five said their companies consistently make culture a core part of strategy.

This isn’t because they don’t care -- it’s because they’re unsure how to move from belief to behavior. Many still equate “being in culture” with chasing memes, influencers, or moments.

But as Dr. Collins reminds us, “Trends are the waves. Culture is the ocean.”

When you mistake the waves for the ocean, you might make a splash -- but you can also wipe out fast.

Redefining What We Mean by Culture

We concur with Dr. Collins, who defines culture as “the operating system of human behavior.”

That means culture isn’t about who people are demographically; it’s about what they believe, what they value, and how they make sense of the world together.

Think sneakerheads, K-pop fandoms, CrossFit devotees, or Swifties. These aren’t demographic segments -- they’re communities bound by shared meaning.

Traditional marketing defines audiences by what they are (age, gender, race, income).
Cultural marketing asks:

• What do they believe?
• What rituals or artifacts bind them?
• What are the codes and symbols that signal belonging?

When you take that approach, you stop targeting people and start joining them.

You stop selling to consumers and start building with communities.

Culture Is the Context for Emotion

Our data revealed that nearly half of respondents believe emotional connections matter more than functional benefits in brand building -- and almost everyone else said they matter equally.

That’s a resounding reminder that the heart of brand building is emotional, not transactional.

Culture is the ecosystem where those emotions take shape. It’s how people locate themselves in the world, express identity, and find belonging.

In that sense, culture isn’t an “add-on” to your brand -- it’s the context your brand lives in.

What the Most Culturally Fluent Brands Have in Common

When we asked respondents which brands best embody culture as a strategic advantage, the same names surfaced again and again: Nike, Apple, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Disney, and Liquid Death among them.

Very different categories. Very different audiences. Yet what they share is remarkably consistent:

1. A clear sense of who they are. Each has an articulated “why” that goes far deeper than product.
2. Behavior that matches belief. They live their values through experience and innovation -- not just marketing.
3. Cultural fluency. They listen, learn, and contribute authentically to the communities they serve.

Nike doesn’t “chase culture.” It is culture -- because its actions continually reinforce the brand’s core narrative of human potential and self-expression.
Apple turns technology into a creative movement.
McDonald’s has mastered the art of participating in everyday cultural joy -- from music to nostalgia to local pride.
And Liquid Death reminds us that even a commodity can become a badge of identity when it understands its tribe.

The takeaway? Culture rewards brands that know who they are and express it boldly.

From Intuition to Infrastructure

What separates these brands isn’t creative instinct alone. It’s structure.

For culture to drive growth, it has to be embedded in the operating system of the company -- not left to the social team or the agency deck.

That means:

• Investing in ethnographic and netnographic research -- the kind that studies people in their real or digital habitats, not just as datasets. (More than half of marketers in our study are doing this now.)
• Building cross-functional alignment around what the brand stands for and how that belief manifests across communications, product, and experience.
• Recognizing that cultural engagement without organizational consistency isn’t authenticity -- it’s theater.

When brand strategy, internal culture, and customer experience align, that’s when resonance happens.

Five Principles for Engaging in Culture the Right Way

From the insights in our report and Dr. Collins’ frameworks, we distilled five guideposts for marketers:

1. Build for Curiosity and Fluency. Don’t assume you understand a community because you’ve observed it. Learn its codes, humor, and values. Bring real voices into the room.
2. To Thine Own Self Be True. If your brand doesn’t have something authentic to contribute, it’s okay to sit one out. Credibility is earned through conviction.
3. Co-Create, Don’t Co-Opt. Partner with creators, artists, and community leaders early -- as collaborators, not spokespeople.
4. Act First, Advertise Second. Cultural relevance without operational integrity is noise. Show your beliefs before you broadcast them.
5. Think Long-Term, Not Viral. Relevance is fleeting; resonance compounds. Build for participation over time, not one-off stunts.

Culture Is a Competency, Not a Campaign

One of the most consistent findings from this research is that culture can’t be handled episodically. It must become a discipline -- one rooted in fluency, empathy, and systems thinking.

As Danielle Spikener of Kraft Heinz and Aki Spicer of Monks NA told us, brands need to move from reacting to cultural waves to understanding the ocean. That means embedding curiosity, diversity, and agility into everyday business rhythms -- not just marketing calendars.

And as Dave Perry of Paramount+ and Dani Mariano of Razorfish remind us, the next generation -- Gen Alpha -- will expect nothing less. They don’t separate online and offline life. They don’t wait for brands to speak; they speak back. They want conversation, not communication.

If we don’t evolve how we listen and engage, we risk irrelevance before they reach adulthood.

A Call to Action

In For the Culture, Dr. Collins quotes Jay-Z: “I do it for my culture.”

Consumers do, too. Every choice they make -- from sneakers to streaming services -- is a cultural act.

The question for all of us is: what are we doing for the culture we claim to serve?

This report is an invitation to marketers everywhere to move beyond “culture talk” and toward cultural literacy -- the ability to listen, act, and lead with clarity and respect.

Because culture isn’t new. But treating it as a strategic discipline may be a new, true unlock for brand growth.

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.

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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.org/MyersBizNet.