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…
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…
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.
_Culture isn’t static, so neither are we. Learn how blending specialisms is the best way to get cultural insights.
_Discover how brands can act on culture, not simply report (or worse, take from culture).
_ Learn how to make real commercial opportunities out of our messy experience.
From our second book, How We Work As Cultural Strategists (left)
Join our Global Managing Director, El Pigram and Joey Zeelen, Managing Director EMEA to find out how to act on cultural change.
The 11th issue of City Limits – our regular exploration of what’s happening in cities around the world – we wanted to celebrate the spaces where people feel welcome. Where marginalised groups don’t feel fear, the places to escape noise and clutter (to avoid sensory overload), and where barriers to participation are fewer.
We describe it as Enabling Spaces – the search for ways to make cities more pleasurable, for more people.
One of our articles was a roadmap for why inclusive urban planning should enable more of us to live with ease tomorrow: to bring more support in old age, healing spaces and play into our childhoods…
Physical Access: The Aging Population Almost all of us at one time or another will need to have specific needs met as we age, whether that’s due to deteriorating eyesight, hearing or memory, or from experiencing intellectual, sensory or physical challenges. We will need homes that cater for these life events, and the housing industry is starting to plan — and build — for enabling a better future for seniors.
By 2050, the global population of people in their 80s will be three times what it is today
(World Health Organization, 2022)
Case Study New York, Sol on Park A building that aids social inclusivity
Moving from… the insular layout of traditional senior living housing, the latest projects in this area focus on improving the walkability of the community, both in terms of the layout and paths but also its accessibility to the kinds of amenities and places people want to go.
Sustainability: Our Need For Nature Building with nature — a green infrastructure — is one route to mitigate for cities surviving in hotter, wet, less predictable climate. But it is also being incorporated to help inhabitants feel connected to the outside world. In our built-up cities, biophilic design can feel healing; our cities as a place where the human and the natural can coil together.
Living near green spaces could add 2.5 years to your life
(Science Advances, US, 2023)
Case Study Singapore, Enabling Village A biophilic design that fosters connection
Moving from… being disconnected in the city, the Enabling Village is a hub for retail, lifestyle, and community with a biophilic design. The spacious layout features in and outdoor areas and allows for room for everyone to enjoy the space with buildings that are seamlessly connected by ramps, landings and lifts.
Everyday Freedoms: Play & Curiosity Children have lost door-step play, especially in our cities. But levelling up access to urban play space is gaining momentum. And it’s not just children who benefit — cities that integrate elements of play and curiosity will foster conversation and community for all ages.
Play should be prescribed for parents and their children
(American Academy of Paediatricians and the UK Children’s Commissioner, 2018)
Case Study Bhubaneswar, Child-Friendly Smart City City planning for play
Moving from… play as a separate space, the ancient city is aiming to be the country’s first official ‘child-friendly city’ within the fast-growing Urban95 global network: an initiative that asks city planners: “If you could experience a city from 95 centimetres high – the height of a three-year-old – what would you change?”
How can cities welcome more people? In our latest issue of City Limits we share how urban life has changed to be better on inclusive and accessible spaces – and even smell better…
It’s through cities that we find meaning, and as we were putting together our 11th issue of City Limits – our ongoing exploration of the ever changing urban experience – we wanted to look at how city living is accelerating change in the very meaningful task of making places more accessible.
There’s lots of ways to talk about this, but by calling this issue Enabling Spaces, we wanted to look at what is making more people feel more welcome in cities.
Pg7 Mapping enabling citiesPg8 A blueprint for future citiesPg10 How brands action inclusion
We go to luxury shops in Miami where a Blind or low vision customer can use a smartphone to interpret what is going on, celebrate a product that silences city noise, and senior housing that connects the community rather than separates them.
The full 16 page magazine includes:
_A semiotic analysis of how to visually present better city experiences – clue: accessibility can be felt as well as seen.
_Interviews with city planning experts about how trauma and neurodiverse needs are informing urban planning.
In our new film series, Crowd Voices, our US team took their cameras across country to hear what matters to young people today…
On the eve of the US election, we filmed young voters across the country.
Young people – whether the ones we met in Tampa, Charleston, Minnesota or New York – talked about the tensions that define and unite them.
Listen to our new series Youth Voices to hear how US youth feel about ideas of Trust, Safety, and Happiness today. First up, Trust – how is it built? And does this audience trust in what their politicians have to say? (spoiler alert… not so much).
If you think listening to youth voices is as important as we do, get in touch at hello@crowddna.com
Every era has its vices. Crowd’s Olivia Anderson looks at how one cigarette brand is breaking tobacco’s taboo in a bid to bring cigarettes back to the masses…
Nature-infused imagery and vintage photographs positions Hestia as intrinsic to American land and culture Cigs and fishnets serve up ‘indie sleaze’Dialing up tobacco’s political tenor with a heavy dose of irony
Code 1: Time-Honoured Americanness
Hestia Tobacco positions smoking as an integral part of Americanness. Visuals call upon iconoclasts of American culture – Superman, Abraham Lincoln – which tether the brand to an established vision of Americanness, instantiating it as part of the nation’s ethos. The brand consistently foregrounds the phrase ‘American Farmer Grown’, which roots the product in the land itself. Hestia’s website features quotes from famed American figures from Lana Del Rey to Abe Lincoln – “so we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies / and we walked off to look for America”. The linguistic work quotes such as this one from Paul Simon does is to code smoking as intrinsic to the American spirit, conjuring a specific image of vintage Americana by recalling the language and imagery of storied eras of the nation’s history. This is similarly reinforced by visuals depicting blue jeans, symbolic of the American ideals of hard work and freedom.
By capitalizing on semiotic cues of classic American-ness, Hestia presents their product as a natural – if not integral part of their cultural identity.
Code 2: Ancient Ritual
Hestia also draw on folklore and tradition to position themselves as the protectors of the true American legacy: “Tobacco is indigenous to the Americas, and has been a part of the history and culture of this land since the dawn of time”. Intertwining tobacco with America’s own origin story draws on ancient ritual and ideas of heritage to convey respect – even reverence – for Hestia’s product. The name Hestia derives from the Greek goddess of the hearth – this evokes the heart of the home, a site intimately connected to ideas of ritual, tradition, custom. The brand’s signature orange tones are earthy, warm and natural – a far cry from to the artificial, overbright shades we associate with vapes. They’re leaning into naturalness, ancient custom and the idea that tobacco is inextricable from the earth itself, attuned to nature’s seasons and processes. As Hestia themselves declare – “Hestia cigarettes are ritual and tradition in your hand”.
Foregrounding the tobacco plants and their raw, ‘naked’, ‘wild’ nature forges a primordial connection to the land itself, effectively doubling down on the ancestral practices underscoring Hestia’s product.
Code 3: Irreverent Craft
Hestia positions itself as a scrappy challenger to Big Tobacco by doubling down on ideas of craft and artisanship. Paradoxically, one of the ways they do this is by using the visual language of a political campaign – a not-so-subtle nod to the politically charged cult of Big Tobacco. The brand’s visuals lean heavily on the imagery associated with political campaigns – badges and banners bear slogans like ‘Smoke Hestia 2024’ and ‘God Hates Vapes’. Hestia also foreground their deep understanding of the cultivation of tobacco, from crop to cig, ‘from seed to smoke’: “to have the knowledge to plant, prune, harvest and cure tobacco remains an art form passed down through generations”.
Constructing their product as an ‘art form’ invokes the idea of craft, positioning Hestia as artisanal, undeniably of nature, far from the mass-produced essence of Big Tobacco.
Conclusion
Hestia is breaking the mould of tobacco brands, evoking its cigarettes as natural, artisanal and intrinsic to American identity. Smoking Hestia tobacco is positioned as an ancient – almost sacrosanct – ritual, carefully crafted and infused with heritage. Hestia’s semiotics do important work in lessening the harmful, taboo aspects of smoking and grounding it in nature, tradition and – above all – storied Americanness.
If you’d like to learn more about how we use semiotics to reach real cultural insights, get in touch at: hello@crowdDNA.com
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…
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 two: The Financial Outsiders, we heard from a community-minded group living and giving outside of elitist money systems.
Here we dig a little deeper into this changing relationship with money and how it can inspire more emergent strategies for mass audiences.
The Financial Outsiders are a manifestation of a deeper cultural shift towards being free from wealth or economic systems that costs others. Looking at what this group gains from living and giving outside of elitist money systems can make us think differently about the way that we craft financial products and position them.
Subverting Status. As chasing down those traditional milestones of (ultra) wealth become less ‘shiny’, how do we think about new articulations of (and ways to cater to) age old social identity needs like ’status’, ‘reward’ and ‘discernment’? It’s not that this audience aren’t seeking all the good stuff that once came with splashing cash – self-gratification, community validation, recognition – but instead they’re more choiceful in how they fulfil these desires, with the act of giving (rather than receiving) hitting that sweet spot.
Values over value. You can’t put a price on happiness. Cliche, and a bit (to use a Gen Z word) ‘cringe’ – but for many this rings true more today than ever before. Rather than play by the rules of a game that’s rigged against them, young people are forging their own way of earning (figurative) wealth – by doubling down and focusing on their values, rather than their earning potential. It’s not that they don’t value work, they just don’t see work as a fair value exchange. Which poses an interesting question to us as marketers, strategists, employers – how do you define, create and communicate real ‘value’ to an audience who interprets it in a fundamentally different way?
(More) Radical Honesty. Radical honesty has been a thing for a while. Honest brands that ‘say it how it is’ connect with an iconically millennial sensibility (I’m looking at you, Ryanair, KFC & Pot Noodle ). Emerging audiences are however encouraging us to move a step further, from saying the unsaid – to doing the unexpected; supporting people and communities in ways that genuinely benefit them. What our Financial Outsiders are calling for isn’t about CSR, it’s about putting an end to gatekeeping that upholds the imbalance between the haves & have nots through creating spaces and cultivating (branded) communities that facilitate the greatest kind of wealth distribution – knowledge.
Learning about The Financial Outsiders 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.
We don’t just ‘do quant’, we culturally charge it. Our Numbers Director, Ed Bird on how to fuse the best of quant rigour with cultural strategy…
When you think about cultural research and strategy, I bet you think about ethnography, observations, trend forecasting, and semiotics – methods that bring you as close to people’s lives as possible. And quite possibly, quant is the last method you think of.
But, since 2017, we’ve been asking ourselves the question: “How do you understand and unpack real human stories that dictate culture when speaking to thousands rather than tens of people?”.
Thinking about how to culturally-charge data allows our global Crowd Numbers team to steadily fly high, tackling some of the biggest challenges from the biggest brands around the world. We’d like to tell you more about how we do it and what this approach can bring to your brand challenges.
How We Culturally-charge Data
Our quantitative work is blended. We feel the very best quant works in tandem with our other research methods. We can unpick complex topics about people and culture through a variety of specialists. This helps us produce clear, human storytelling, and back it all by understanding people at scale.
Our blended approach doesn’t just stop in house. As part of STRAT7 we partner with our sister agency Bonamy Finch when we need to enhance our analytics and data science capabilities. And we use STRAT7 Audiences, the group’s global centre of excellence for data collection.
We’re ad-hoc: Why would we use a fixed template when culture (and your objectives) aren’t static? So, at Crowd Numbers we start from scratch. We approach each brief with creativity and an open mind: questioning everything and experimenting with traditional methods to tailor these to your very specific goals.
We don’t do filler: Forget about long PowerPoints filled with charts, we collaborate with our editorial team and of course our qual research team to produce reports that inspire, not overwhelm.
We’re human: Our aim is to replicate real world thinking and interactions, but at scale. Just look at our questionnaires that strike the balance between the rigour of academic quant research with the flow of real conversations.
But what have we achieved so far? Well, in short, quite a lot. It’s been quite a road, but let’s go a bit deeper and show you how we combine the best of quant rigour with cultural strategy…
(left) Blended, human and no filler, as shown from our Resetting the Dancefloor for Ballantine’s report
People & Context When brands need powerful narratives to lead conversations, culturally charged data can help clients to confidently lead the way on how culture is evolving, and showcase brand knowledge in certain categories, sectors, or topics.
Case study: Paramount x On Screen Representation Take our work with Paramount in both 2021 and 2023. They wanted our help to unpack attitudes to on-screen representation to push this important conversation forward. We devised a 15-market survey that unpacked real human understanding of both societal views and deeper personal emotional impacts. But we went further, speaking to experts globally to produce a market leading narrative for our very public facing findings. Read more here.
Brand & Comms We don’t just use data to size, prioritise and validate (though we do that too), but we love to use it to demonstrate how brands can tactically and strategically lean into culture.
Case Study: Amazon Ads x Culture Our partnership with Amazon has yielded some fantastic projects, none more so than unpacking the relationship between advertising and our evolving culture. Big questions, need big solutions so we brought in trends, qual, and semiotics wrapping it all up in a global survey that captured our evolving relationships with advertising and the role Amazon can play. This storytelling was launched at Cannes Lion in 2024. Read more here.
Product & Experience Culture is messy, but we can find your space and help you execute a role in culture. We provide executional guidance across consumer journeys and touchpoints but always through the lens of culture – something quant testing often misses.
Case Study: Ballantines x True Music DEI We did this with Ballantine’s. Following our work Resetting The Dancefloor, it was all about helping them with the next step in progressing DEI within live music and clubbing spaces. So, we tested ideas and hypotheses and through culturally charged data, we found meaningful ways the brand could make a difference. Not just based on metrics, but on human understanding. Read more here.
We’re very proud to have developed global quantitative capabilities with a focus on both storytelling and the analytical challenges. We love what we do, and we think you would too. If you’d like to know more, drop us a line at hello@crowddna.com and we’d be happy to discuss.
