BRAND | STRATEGY | CULTURE
Shifts in society and culture impact brands and businesses as much as people, because they live in the same cultural context. Not only does recognizing cultural shifts give rise to new opportunities and reorient existing businesses, but when brands authentically reflect these shifts in their own narratives, they are considered culturally relevant and meaningful and are resultantly appealing.
Embed themselves in cultural narratives
Brands
I'VE HELPED
Impact
BRAND
How do you create content in line with societal realities of the day.
Despite a successful, strong new positioning that fed into new content, the channel was losing viewership. Social and cultural constructs like femininity, relationships, love, etc. in the current cultural context were to be defined in line with the new positioning to be taken as a common thread across different story constructs.
How do you dissipate the denim sub-culture beyond urban to semi-urban centres
An online brand, Korra Jeans’ product lines were made of raw selvedge denim making it niche in the category. With a focus on craftsmanship and sustainability, Korra products had great potential in the domestic and international markets, but awareness was low.
PROVEN
Expertise
BRAND CULTURAL STRATEGY
Blueprint for the brand’s cultural expression across advertising, content, entertainment, and experience. This is a layered three-pronged exercise involving brand and category immersion, ethnographic immersion, and a gap analysis. Outcomes from each exercise are brought together to form a robust cultural strategy articulating the brand’s ideology and cultural positioning. The brand and category immersion tracks the present and historical movement, and the cultural influences impacting and shaping the brand and the category. Ethnographic immersion uncovers insights from cultural markers like cinema, books, fashion, music, advertising, television… among others to help understand the zeitgeist. The gap analysis identifies a cultural whitespace for the brand.
BRAND POSITIONING /
EXTENSION STRATEGY
Cultural analysis to identify business opportunities for the brand. A mapping and understanding of broad social and cultural movements that may have had an impact on the category or consumer preferences and habits is undertaken. This analysis leads to the identification new business opportunities. If the brand’s current business context and ideology align with the new opportunity, depending on the nature of the opportunity a new brand positioning or brand extension strategy is devised.
BRAND EXPRESSION STRATEGY
Codify the brand’s cultural expression. Derived from the Cultural Strategy, this serves as a ready guide for the development of advertising, content, and brand experience. The brand expression strategy articulates the cultural myths and codes that will best express the brand’s ideology. Using ethnographic and semiotic tools, relevance to the current cultural context is established. Coupled with the brand messaging architecture, the brand’s character, and the tone of voice are articulated.
BRAND CONTENT STRATEGY
Develop brand content themes across mediums. Within the framework of the brand cultural and brand expression strategy, content themes which the brand can utilise over a time period are developed. The themes will span strategic as well as tactical content across traditional & new media and entertainment; the aim being to create consistent brand messaging and experience that is relevant in the cultural context.
BRAND EXPRESSION WORKSHOP
Create a tangible framework to express the brand’s ideology. By analysing socio-political narratives using ethnography and semiotics, the output of the workshop puts down culturally relevant constructs, myths, and codes that will bring the brand’s point of view alive. These are then mapped and documented to be used consistently while developing advertising and digital campaigns, content, and brand experiences.
BRAND CONTENT WORKSHOP
Develop culturally meaningful and relevant content themes. Through brand & category immersion and ethnographic insights derived from socio-political narratives, this workshop develops content themes for specific advertising campaigns, content, digital media, entertainment, and physical spaces. The content themes are aimed at helping the brand express its ideology in line with the current narratives thereby staying culturally relevant and meaningful.
Process
Differentiating brands through Cultural innovation
THE
IDEOLOGY
MYTHS
+
CULTURAL
CODES
BRAND
EXPRESSION
VEHICLES
Innovative POV of a brand on a Cultural construct
Tangible basis of brand
Expression
Communication,
content, films and
digital
BRAND IMPACT ON CULTURE
cultural innovation
ARRIVING AT THE
