“I can’t say it was a bigger challenge than running an agency…” Crowd DNA Founder Andy Crysell talks about Selling the Night, his book about club culture and brands… 

In whatever way it makes sense that Andy Crysell is both the only person who has interviewed all members of Wu Tang Clan and founded Crowd DNA (and we think it does), his book continues this path.   

For Selling The Night (Andy’s third book, having wrote Crowd’s How We Work With Culture and also co-authored one about Ibiza way back in the 1990s), he spent last year interviewing more than 100 DJs, promoters, marketers, academics, activists, archivists, policymakers, photographers, writers and designers, urban planners and venture capitalists – and reading countless more stuff – to bring together a forensic portrait of both how brands stake a space on the dancefloor, and how club culture takes a place in the wider creative industries. 

How did running Crowd for over 15 years (Andy left the business at the end of 2023) feed into this book?   

I guess I can claim to have had a foot in both camps: a contributor and a participant in the music subculture, including writing about it as a journalist. But then over 20 years spent running two agencies and seeing the other side, working with a bunch of brands wrestling with things like, ‘how do you show up in culture?’ The eternal struggle for ‘authenticity’. I’m probably in a small camp of people who could write the book from this kind of rounded perspective. 

What is your view on how brands should show up in culture – and how has it evolved?   

Going into a project like this, I suppose you are vaguely hopeful you’re going to crack some magic formula through the research and interviews, but you kind of know you’re not. I don’t think there is any secret formula to it. But there are some basics to consider, like consistency trumps short-termism; the value of staying in your lane in terms of having a clear idea what your role in the culture is; and actually collaborating meaningfully with the community on what that role should be. The last of these is no doubt pretty obvious to anyone working in cultural insight, but seemingly not so across businesses as a whole. It’s amazing how hard they still find doing that. 
 
And I think a simplified way to think about how things have evolved is we’ve gone through stages where, firstly, brands didn’t do much more than put up their banners and posters; to then trying to enhance what was going on, either through creating content to document the culture or experiences at the events which otherwise wouldn’t be possible; and now there’s a language shift to talking about grants and funds rather than marketing initiatives – as in brands implying they will support the infrastructure of club culture more deeply and over a prolonged time. 

Of course, some people very reasonably don’t think brand money should be anywhere near club culture. I get that, but dance music is also a pretty broad church these days. I’m probably boringly in the middle on this one. You know, I’m not super pro, I’m not super anti brands in culture. I’m pragmatic that culture and creativity needs money from somewhere. It can come from within the community itself, which is amazing when it works. It can come from arts-type funding. Feasibly it can come from institutional investors. Or it can of course come from brands. Something I found positive with many of the people I spoke to for the book is they’re thinking up clever ways to combine these sources of money. Therefore, brand money in the mix, but not being totally reliant on it. 

Campaigns from Fiorucci’s disco years, including singer and drag queen Divine. Meanwhile, NYC clubbers would plaster the walls of their loft spaces and walk ups with Absolut vodka adverts by artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Waring (above) and Kenny Scharf.

A big theme through the book is how dance music, whether disco or rave or through related organisations like Red Mull Music Academy, have given wider access to the creative industries…

Yeah, I’ve always felt dance music and club culture has had this democratising power, creating opportunities and pathways for those who may otherwise not have had them – including those from working class backgrounds and marginalised communities. But I was also curious if that still felt the case, in a more gentrified world where operating without a safety net of privilege is so much harder. In a more polarised world, where you have big dance music festivals and venture capital-backed Drumsheds-style things on the one side. Very underground, community-minded parties for-those-in-the-know on the other. Most things in the middle (Fabric an exception as it’s still going, but spaces of that kind), struggling to survive. What I heard, to paraphrase, is that it can still work like that, but you have to be more organised than was once the case. You can’t leave things to change and assume one thing will automatically lead to another.  

But the potential is still there. There’s something about club, rave, dance culture, whatever you want to call it, which puts you in closer proximity to the heart of it all. It is intrinsically participatory. You contribute to it, add to it, even if you’re not necessarily putting on the night. Bit of a generalisation, but I’m not sure that rock music, for instance, offers that. This sense of the creativity being relatable and within reach, and of joining cultural dots. I think there’s something in that in how dance music has created opportunities for people. 

So many people I spoke to for the book talked passionately about the impact that club culture has had on their careers in creative fields. Even if their career ultimately now doesn’t have a lot to do with club culture, they can draw those through lines.  

You mentioned how club culture is needing to get more organised?   

It was one of the loudest messages I heard in the course of writing the book. It feels like people are just getting more and more armed with information really. And community now means more than it ever did in dance music. It’s a term that’s always been used but I think for many it didn’t mean much more than the like minded people I go dancing with. Whereas now there’s much more intentionality to it – I suppose this sense that if you can’t trust the outside world, you look inwards for support and solutions. 

And I was also amazed at how much I heard people talk about education. You know, I don’t think I would ever have heard the word education and dance music in the same sentence in the past. Now everyone is looking into their communities to learn about everything from how you get funding, to how you organise a night, to how you make DJing more accessible, to how you resurface origin stories and so on. 

And I guess it’s about a reaction to a tougher world, really, isn’t it? Everyone over the age of about 40 that I interviewed had this sense that things just kind of happened a bit magically – one minute you’re starting a club night or designing flyers or whatever, the next you’re making connections in the creative industries. Now you can’t leave things to chance…  

Electronic Beats parties, sponsored by Deutsche Telekom, Electronic Beats was created under the mandate of “sharing freshly gained knowledge with the community and forging new connections,” and included parties, podcasts, DVD and YouTube series.

One of the things you write about in the book is the gentrification of dance music itself, the intellectualism and also festivalisation of it. The fact there are exhibitions and tangential experiences beyond the dancefloor itself. Does this create opportunities for brands?

I think so. These tangential things seem a good fit, and places where brands can feel additive rather than extractive. I think this takes us back to the Red Bull Music Academy example. They did put on parties but they were better known for what they did in terms of documenting the culture, telling stories that weren’t getting told and sharing knowledge. They did it for 21 years as well, which goes a long way in terms of building trust. It’s easy to see why that kind of thing is a better fit for brands than trying to have a presence in a sweaty basement club where there’s 100 people, a DJ hiding in the corner, a strobe light, big speakers and not much else needed. 

Talk to us about metrics, how you measure the value of brands working with cultures like dance music?   

Short-termism came up a lot in conversations as a problem, in terms of brands getting involved in dance music – and then just as swiftly uninvolved. There’s lots of reasons for this; not least CMOs tending to leave their roles after about two years and not wanting to waste energy on longer term initiatives that they won’t get the credit for. But also a sense that initiatives in music often fail because brand and agency people can’t quite prove the success of them. They’ve got to go upstairs and there’s someone there that doesn’t give a shit about underground culture. For them, it’s just another marketing outlay and they’re not seeing the evidence around success and efficacy that they see from more conventional advertising, where the forms of measurement are well established. 

What can help here? 

Well, someone could put more effort into creating the metrics, the KPIs – perhaps a research agency could help with that. But I guess more broadly, people brand and agency-side need to learn to speak fluently in two languages: to be able to speak credibly to people within the culture but also explain the commercial benefits to those in the corporation. You need to have a game plan, don’t you? How do you deal with your people upstairs? How do you create that space around what you’re doing that means you’re not being measured by the quarter? How do you create a bit of room? A ‘moat’, I suppose you could describe it. That gives you the space to go further, and be more adventurous in what you do. And having a really strong team that absolutely believes in it all a little bit more than it just being their day job.   

You also spoke to people focused on how cities operate after dark – what did you hear from them? 

I learned that there are a lot of people in cities around the world trying to cook up new ways that club culture can thrive. Different types of multi-purpose arts space emerging beyond the conventional nightclub. Different types of relationship forming with the authorities in each city. 

For instance, I spoke to Lutz Leichsenring, who runs the ClubCommission in Berlin. He was very enthusiastic about a future of people coming back into the centre of cities for creativity and cultural experiences. He was arguing that people aren’t working or shopping in the centre of cities anymore, so an after dark purpose becomes more of an imperative for those who plan urban futures.  

And within all of this, there seems to be this overdue but growing realisation of how much we’ve lost by prioritising our digital lives over the time we spend in person with others. You know, that something we used to think of as just our normal lives now has a weird little name attached to it: IRL. I don’t think club culture will look the same as it did, but I’m sure with this in mind it will flourish in new forms. 

Sometimes what I see in the night from brands is just so obvious – and kind of boring – any tips?  

I mean, I think it’s sort of testament to the time we’re in that people probably don’t feel that brave. Probably people do feel scared about committing too much, and that everything needs to be very, very measurable. That said, I do think there are brands doing interesting things, whether it’s contributing to shining a light on sub-Saharan dance music, creating platforms for women DJs, funding mobile studios, or helping venues to train their staff to deal with sexual harassment. It’s not on the scale of RBMA, but in the best cases it’s well designed and supportive. 
 
I guess there’s probably some responsibility on the dance music side, too – to be more directive and proactive in what brand input they do and don’t want, and to design ideas and approaches together. 

Do you have a personal favourite interview for the book?   

Cop-out answer but everyone was great. And I really did appreciate everyone being generous with their time and opinions. I loved going to interview DJ Nicky Siano, who took me back to the earliest days, to pre-disco and Stonewall era NYC. He was telling me about hanging outside the gay bars when he was 14 years old: he wasn’t allowed to go in, but it was to hear the music playing inside. There was just a lot of richness in that story.   

Jamz Supernova was so interesting too – she has such an impressively clear perspective on what’s changing globally and how conventions are being challenged. It was all so positive to hear. King Britt as well – I have a lot of admiration for his Blacktronika initiative in San Diego, deepening understanding of how people of colour have shaped electronic music. 

And also Torsten Schmidt (co-found of Yadastar, who developed the Red Bull Music Academy), partly because of the process, because he wasn’t responding to my emails at all. Then he was giving me these really strange, cryptic responses. And then he agreed to be interviewed, but it had to be when he was walking the dog for some reason. After all of that, he was really open and forthcoming on the RBMA story and the intentions behind it. 

The book grapples a lot about this idea that dance music genuinely opens access to creative industries, right? And you’re doing some work in this area, notably as a trustee with the 20/20 Levels social mobility charity…  

Yes, there’s that crazy statistic that there’s now more access to law and finance than the creative industries – which sounds ridiculous. I’d love to see more agencies doing stuff that feels a bit more now, and real, rather than just self-congratulatory, on paper, and that doesn’t necessarily have any tangible impact. It feels like there’s a lot of showboating from the various trade organisations like MRS, too. Also a strong sense that this is just about doing people a favour rather than it being an absolute necessity to increase access to these industries to have fresh ideas, exciting thinking and better perspectives. 

I have occasional rants on LinkedIn about job ads saying a degree is required. It feels absurdly exclusionary to me – ploddy stuff from ploddy companies. I’ve had a reasonable success rate so far. I’m tracking at six companies that have changed their ads to two that have refused. It’s interesting hearing their reasons and excuses, too. 

To buy a copy of Selling The Night go here.

Crowd Shortcuts – a quick chat about something that’s caught our attention. This week, Crowd’s Olivia Anderson on why shoulder pads and sartorial drama is back…

What’s all this then? Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of ‘quiet luxury’, a new aesthetic is lighting up the catwalks – one defined by opulence, excess and overt displays of luxury and wealth. This new/old aesthetic harks back to the late 80s, to the kind of ‘yuppies gone wild’ look made famous by movies like American Psycho (more on that later). There’s a new sheriff in town, and ‘Boom Boom’ is her name.   

Boom Boom to you too. The name was coined by trend forecaster Sean Monahan of ‘normcore’ fame, who draws an analogy between the current cultural zeitgeist – economic difficulty, the persistent threat of war, geopolitical tensions – and that of the late 80s. Boom Boom is a counterbalance to the minimalism and restraint that defined the ‘stealth wealth’ trend that preceded it – the polar opposite to understated elegance and the humble-brag of minimalist designer Brunello Cucinelli.  

Trouble on the horizon = dust off your shoulder pads. Pretty much. Like ‘the lipstick effect’ – an economic descriptor for when tough times spikes purchase of little luxuries – but supercharged. The sartorial powers-that-be are giving us a clear message: restore your Loro Piana loafers to the archives, it’s time to decommission champagne coloured chiffon and 50 shades of grey cashmere by The Row for dramatic silhouettes and brash jewel tones put forth by the likes of Saint Laurent and Gucci.  

I’ve always said there’s something about the healing power of leopard print. And you’d be right.  

Moet collaborates with Pharrell. Versace gets gilded. Gucci moves ‘from minimalism to ultra-maximal’

But wait. Is this just another passing trend? What’s next, despot-core? Protectionism-wave? The Trade War aesthetic?  

It’s a fair question. The meaning of ‘trend’ has become so diluted of late that we’re confusing the timely manifestations of cultural shifts – the ‘-cores’ and aesthetics  – with the essence of the shifts themselves, when they’re really just the flavour of the day. That’s why it’s important to look beneath the aesthetic to realise that Boom Boom is an articulation of something deeper. 

The deeper meaning of Boom Boom?  

Remember how ‘eat the rich’ rose up alongside ‘quiet luxury’?  

And orcas were attacking the yachts of the superrich.  

That they did. In an age where the West is under the thumb of the technocratic elite and one of the most powerful offices in the world is taken up by a man synonymous with extreme (gaudy?) wealth, it’s no surprise that fast culture is mirroring luxury tinged with sleaze. Technocrats rule and the economic divide is getting harsher, so we’re seeing that preoccupation with wealth spill over into other areas of culture – a new gilded age, tinged with something more urgent.  

TL;DR. We’re fetishising greed and excess, and playing to masculine codes of power and dominion through androgynous styling and big shoulders when a world is in entropy, and political power resides with powerful men.   

Our second book is about how to do meaningful cultural strategy – it’s about why it matters more than ever, how we do it and who we are…

Download the book here.

In 2023, we released How We Work With Culture, our guide to exploring culture from the street up and how we use this perspective to amplify impact for our clients. 

This time we’re back to dig a little deeper into how we do it.

In this book, we first talk about why cultural strategy matters more than ever now, the second chapter looks at how we get clients the culturally charged commercial wins and finally, we introduce our killer team of cultural strategists from around the world.

We hope it gives our team and our clients a stronger sense of what we are about. Putting down on paper how we will continue to deliver Culturally Charged Commercial Advantage for the next 15 years… 

Download the book here.

In our series Colour Me, Crowd DNA uses semiotics to decode colour trends and unpack cultural shifts in the process…

Colour of course carries plenty of meaning, but that changes (and often very fast) alongside lived experiences. In this series, Crowd DNA uses semiotics to decode colour trends and unpack cultural shifts in the process… 

At Crowd, we use semiotics as one of our tools, showing where signs and symbols – like words, visual icons, packaging, or logos – are a shortcut for brands to reveal their message or impact behaviour.  

Following on from Gen Z Yellow and Heritage Purple, our third edition charts how Cherry Red – the most symbolically-laden fruits in the cultural lexicon – has been used to capture the changing representations of girl, woman and other.  

As the full spectrum of femininity is playing out in culture, we see motifs of desire, power and hunger channelled through the prism of the delicate, fierce and luscious Cherry Red.  

In Colour Me: Cherry Red we explore:

Semiotic analysis can help brands understand culture and keep ahead of cultural change, and we hope our Colour Me series will help you in choosing more impactful colours.

If you’d like to learn more about how we use semiotics to reach real cultural insights, please get in touch: hello@crowdDNA.com

Crowd DNA and Snapchat show how to think differently about Gen Z, who are prioritising authentic connection above all else…

Gen Z is the most documented generation of all time – and yet, their moods, mindsets and motivations often remain mysterious to brands.

So, what is the ‘new news’ about Gen Z?

The mood is up

While last year’s report found that 8 in 10 Gen Z felt “negatively about the world today,” this year’s study shows Gen Z entering the conversation with positivity, passion, and purpose. ‘Grateful,’ ‘optimistic,’ and ‘motivated’ are the top three emotions they’re feeling in the wake of the COVID years – where everything finally feels like it’s returning to stability, and they’re able to look ahead with confidence.

Authentic connection is Gen Z’s biggest unmet need.

This means real people, real stories, real moments, real connection.

78% of Gen Z say: “So much in the world seems fake – I’m just looking for something real,” while 80% of Gen Z say: “When I am connected to my friends, I feel the most like myself”.

Authentic connection is not a fluffy marketing buzzword – it’s an incredible driver of purchase power, with friends being the most trusted influencers when it comes to personal decisions, shopping, and brands.

Charts from the Crowd DNA x Snapchat study

The best platform to cultivate authentic connection? Snapchat.

Of course, we partnered with Snapchat on this study, so take this with a pinch of salt. But the data was clear: where other social platforms are most closely associated with “killing time,” “sugary dopamine rushes,” or “perfect, polished content,” Snapchat stood out as the app Gen Z use on the go, the app that connects them authentically to their friends, and the app that helps them feel the most like themselves.

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A few other takeaways from the study:

●              They’re prioritising personal success over traditional ideals. Gen Z may have ‘old school’ goals like buying a house (it’s in their top three financial priorities for the next few years), but achieving personal goals – rather than hitting traditional milestones like securing a 9-5 job – is what brings them the greatest joy.

●              They’re scrutinising what they buy – and why. In the cost-of-living crisis, attributes like cool factor, quality, and cultural relevance all matter more than ever. An overwhelming number of Gen Z now say, “I don’t care what brand I’m wearing, as long as the aesthetic is on point.” Affordable luxury is also here to stay, with 55% of Gen Z actively seeking high-quality products at accessible price points, and 61% preferring “good dupes” over premium brands – signalling a pragmatic approach to spending without compromising on quality.

●              They’re sceptical of social media, but still crave connection. They’re chronically online, but chronically disconnected, with 65% saying, “my generation is lonelier than ever.” Algorithms are under fire, with 62% believing they are killing personal style, and the era of oversharing is over. Private one-to-one interactions are now the priority, with 69% saying, “I like expressing myself online but I don’t want to show the whole world – only my close friends.”

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Want more on Gen Z and how to connect with them through social media, retail, beauty, fashion, gaming, entertainment and beyond? Contact Head of Agency & Cultural Strategy (APAC) Stephanie Winkler, stephanie.winkler@crowddna.com

Hosted by our Global Managing Director, Elliot Pigram and Joey Zeelen, Managing Director EMEA, an opportunity to welcome in a new era of cultural research…

Didn’t get to join? Download the full presentation here.

Back in 2022, we released ‘How We Work With Culture’, our guide to exploring culture from the street up and how we use this perspective to amplify impact for our clients.

Now we’re back to dig a little deeper. On Thursday 20 March, we hosted a client webinar to look at what exactly we mean by “cultural strategy” today – and why (we think) it matters more than ever before. We talked about establishing our toolkits, future-focused principles and how we train our cultural strategists to solve the messiness of culture.

Didn’t get to join? Download the full presentation here.

Thursday March 20 at 9.30AM EST/ 1.30PM GMT. RSVP by clicking here.

The Future Of Cultural Strategy – a webinar on how to help brands make real opportunities out of our messy experiences…

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To celebrate the launch of our second book, How We Work As Cultural Strategists, join us for a webinar on the best way to get cultural insights today.

What we do at Crowd is guided by the single, simple belief that all brands and people live – and are influenced by – culture. Culture is everywhere around us – it’s the unwritten rules and rituals that make our world(s) tick. It’s the starting point for how people behave and trickles all the way down to how people see, feel, engage with and advocate for brands.    

But culture is getting messier.  

Society is getting messier by the day. People are getting messier by the minute. And the consumer experience is messier by the second.  

At Crowd DNA we have adapted our tools to unpick these messy experiences. 

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Join our Global Managing Director, El Pigram and Joey Zeelen, Managing Director EMEA to find out how to act on cultural change. 

RSVP by clicking by clicking here 

Welcome to the second drop of our Trends Report 2025. This time our global team of futurists and strategists share five shifts shaping culture this year (and beyond)…

Last month we looked at five trends developed and refined by a global team of futurists and strategists across our five offices. As with all our client projects, nothing at Crowd is off the shelf – we believe the future is best co-created. These are starting blocks to inspire you and get you thinking. 

Now here’s the next five, to leave you – like us – with even more enthusiasm for 2025 (and beyond), to act on culture and help shape the future you want to see.

Download our second trend report here.

Come to Crowd in 2025 for strategy rooted in cultural foresight, contact us at hello@crowdDNA.com 

Download our 27-page trend report here.