Culture-Led Brands

In a world of relentless change and pervasive uncertainty, brands can only thrive if they become adept at reading and responding to cultural currents and signals. Today, cultural relevance is not just a marketing output, but a foundational element of successful contemporary business strategy. Brands no longer operate in a vacuum; instead, they are active participants in a global dialogue impacting culture and communities, both geographical and through fandoms. This book equips leaders with the tools to navigate this rapidly evolving business landscape, embracing uncertainty and harnessing cultural relevance to drive growth. Covering everything from marketing to commerce, innovation and creativity, political sensitivity and technology transformations all the way to diversity and inclusion, environmental consciousness and how to credibly leverage the influence of cultural voices, this book enables you to build a culture-led growth strategy and create a resilient brand. With real-world examples from brands like adidas Originals, Guinness and YouTube, this book provides a practical framework for embedding cultural relevance throughout your entire brand. It encourages leaders to rethink not just their external messaging, but their internal values and operations to create a culture-led branding and business strategy that is adaptive, authentic and accountable.