Culture

It’s a word often used but rarely fully understood. Marketers intuitively know that culture is important and powerful, yet their understanding of culture is largely superficial – leaving them unable to tap into its full power.

Unpack what culture is and the operating system of how to use it by taking part in the ‘Unlocking the Influence of Culture’ online learning programme. A course that’ll help you plan marketing activities that are more likely to be adopted into the cultural sphere and, ultimately, get people to move.

Informed by the behavioural sciences and cultural scholarship across a combination of academic disciplines, you’ll learn both the ‘know-why’ and the 'know-how’. All from an award-winning marketer, professor, and cultural translator whose evidence-based academic work and decades of practice has been embedded into the curriculum.

This is a one-of-a-kind six-week course that will leave you with the means to operationalise culture in your work and across your organisation.
Cannes Lions logo crossed with Marcus Collins' Unlocking the Influence of Culture: A Marketer’s Greatest Cheat Code logo against a yellow background

Dr Marcus Collins

Dr Marcus Collins is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator. He is the former chief strategy officer at Wieden+Kennedy, New York, a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the author of the best-selling book, For The Culture. 

Marcus is an inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement and a recipient of the Thinkers50 Radar Distinguished Achievement Award for the idea most likely to shape the future of business management. 

His strategies and creative contributions have led to the launch and success of Google’s Real Tone technology, the Made In America music festival, and the Brooklyn Nets, among others. Before his advertising tenure, Marcus worked on iTunes + Nike sports music initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé.

Who is this course for?

This course has been developed for Marketers and Advertising Brand Strategists looking to harness the power of culture in their work.

You'll be able to devise marketing activities that are more likely to be adopted into the cultural sphere, spread throughout the population, and ultimately deliver creative success.

  • Marketing Leaders

    CMOs, VPs, Directors and Managers

  • Brand Strategists

    CSOs, GSDs, SDs and beyond

What does the six week programme look like?

Video Module: What is Culture?

Unpack the mechanisms of culture so that you can operationalise it in your work, and identify it in your segmentation and targeting efforts.


Live Session: Making Meaning

Learn how brand meaning is collectively constructed by consumers to inform how intended meaning is successfully signalled through marketing.


Podcast Module: Building a culture of creativity

Video module: Finding A Congregation

Learn a new approach to segmentation through a cultural lens that’s a better descriptor of who people are, and a better predictor of what they might likely do.


Podcast Module: Identifying your brand’s belief

Video Module: Preaching The Gospel 

Learn a new approach to communicating in a way that activates the “decision-making brain”.


Podcast Module: Decisions, decisions, decisions

Video Module: Network Effects

Learn the social physics of network effects to design marketing campaigns that propagate throughout a population.

 

Podcast Module: Activating network effects, behind the veil

Video Module: Getting Closer 

Learn different methodologies for studying culture-ethnography and netnography.


Podcast Module: Netnographies

Video Module: Proceed with Caution 

Learn the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation so that you’re participating in culture ethically and responsibly.


Podcast Module: Cultural production


Live Session: The Future of Brand 

A look at the history of culture, where we’ve been, to get an understanding of where we are and where we’re going next – so that you can future-proof your brand.

What you'll leave the course with

You’ll watch in-depth videos, listen to engaging podcasts, and read the book ‘For The Culture’ throughout the narrative arc of the course.

The structure of the course will go from ‘know why’ to ‘know how’, unpacking the science behind why things are the way they are and how we can harness this understanding to power culturally impactful work. Leaving you to be able to answer:

  • What is culture?
  • Why does it have such an effect on us?
  • Why is it so influential?
  • How does it impact consumption?
  • How do marketers successfully engage in culture?
  • How do we study culture?
  • How do we ensure that our marketing isn't pegged as cultural appropriation?

Why choose this course?

  • Culture specific and evidence-based

    This course is designed to not only demystify the abstractions of culture, but also reveal its mechanisms. So that marketers can operationalise it in their work and how they work together as an organisation. All the thinking is empirically supported and informed by cultural literature from scholars across interdisciplinary fields for well over a century – as well as Marcus’s evidence-based academic work and decades of practice.

  • Practical Application

    You ‘ll learn about why culture has such a sway on us and why it’s so tightly linked to consumption. You’ll learn about culture’s implication on segmentation and how to improve your targeting efforts to influence behavioural adoption and a ‘network effect’. You’ll learn how to study culture to find where your brand has the best opportunity to engage in it and also identify the potential pitfalls. Finally, you’ll learn it all in a way that’s conceptually rich but easily digestible, so you can apply it directly to your work… and maybe even your daily lives.

  • Practitioner expertise

    Dr. Marcus Collins is a Cannes Lions Grand Prix and Clio Award-winning marketer – winning for his work on Google Pixel and Farmland – and cultural translator. He is the former chief strategy officer at Wieden+Kennedy, New York, a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the author of the best-selling book, ‘For The Culture’. Marcus is an inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement and a recipient of the Thinkers50 Radar Distinguished Achievement Award for the idea most likely to shape the future of business management. His strategies and creative contributions have led to the launch and success of Google’s Real Tone technology, the Made In America music festival, and the Brooklyn Nets, among others. Before his advertising tenure, Marcus worked on iTunes + Nike sports music initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé.

Transform your career.

Learning opportunities from LIONS offer a blend of theory and practical elements from globally-known practitioners
– leaving you ready to progress your career in creativity.
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