Our editorial insight series, Club Free, meets people who don’t fit neatly into segmentation tick-boxes. Here Global Managing Director El Pigram gives some tactics for brands to meet them outside of these…
Club Free Issue One, download it here.
At Crowd, we believe that change presents opportunity.
Our latest editorial insights series, Club Free, is about groups seeking a new way of thinking about their individual liberty. It’s not freedom that’s unchecked or selfish: we talked to people who are providing each other with the support, empathy and community to exercise their freedom effectively.
In chapter one: The Poly-Normals, we heard from married couples, young daters, content creators and community spokespeople in the US and UK who by choosing to engage in multiple romantic relationships make room for more creativity, more sharing and more openness.
Here we dig a little deeper into this relationship energy and identify how fringe movements like polyamory can inspire more emergent strategies for mass audiences.
The Poly-Normals are a manifestation of deeper cultural shift toward more uninhibited forms of connection. These moments can help us think differently about the way we craft product, position brands and hold a mirror to modern relationships in our communications.
- Purposeful Pleasure.
At the core of polyamory is a celebration of meaningful release; the idea that ‘letting go’ (of stereotype or expectation) doesn’t need to be a reckless act that compromises our values or the things we hold important.
How can we create moments or new messages that lean into conscious, deliberate joy without the underbelly of guilt, shame or judgement that often comes hand in hand with prioritising our own enjoyment.
- Breaking the stalemate.
Increased understanding of intersectionality, greater social recognition of non-binary identities and a growing community of people reimagining sex and relationships. These movements don’t exist in isolation – and all point to a need for less dualistic thinking. Culture is messy, people are messy and adopting a ‘this or that’ view on how people go about life is increasingly inaccurate (and unproductive).
How can we reframe how we understand our audience, and how we craft our strategies to connect with people in ways that are less monolithic?
- Unzipping our assumptions
Of course, not all relationships down the track will look like this. But it does suggest that there’s a growing schism between old and new ways of thinking. How can we help to challenge how we think about (and cater to) family and community?
Learning about The Poly-Normals is part of our commitment to look at (and be inspired by) groups of people who don’t fit neatly into tick-boxes, well trodden segmentations or traditional pathways.
We hope you find these stories interesting. And please do feel (yes) free to reach out to the Crowd DNA team to explore how this type of thinking could apply to your brand challenges.
Club Free Issue One, download it here.