Influencing Pop Culture

I just stumbled upon a really good interview with Alex Bogusky administered by the New Denver Ad Club earlier this year. Check it out here.

One of Alex's sound bites that I found particularly inspiring was a comment made about shaping pop culture. I think it's something we can all learn from.

The question surrounded how CP+B, as an agency, penetrates pop culture so effectively with its campaigns for truth, Burger King and more... How is it possible for brands to change and shape pop culture?

Alex: Pop culture has only one job, and that is to constantly change. It wants to change. It needs to change. And it changes everyday.

Of course... the door is always open and it's open to anyone. Hearing that was one of those duh obvious moments where you say to yourself, "why didn't I phrase it like that?" He's right. Pop culture rises and falls and there's no real rhyme or reason to it. It's ever-changing and the important thing is to participate.

But what makes some things catch on in pop culture, while others pass by unnoticed? Who can know such things for sure?? But for collective debate and commentary, below are three things that are probably at work:

1. A unique twist on something common or mundane.
Take something you see everyday, now apply a new filter to it. Twist it in some new way. Add something to it. Make people feel kinda silly for never looking at something so common in the way you see it.

2. It doesn't really mean anything.
When you peel pack the surface and ask, "why," there's no universal answer. One single movement could stand for such diverse things as politics, fun or individuality, depending on who you ask. It just "is."

3. It's sharable, but not totally describable.
Try articulating Warhol's work for a minute or two... How'd that go? Like the paintings of the king himself, things that become part of pop culture can be described in such a way that people are intrigued, but their exact existence can't totally be re-created by word of mouth. This quality makes it so people must come in contact with the item and deduce their own feelings (see #2 again).

That's my view. I'd love to hear from those more in-tune than I... calling social-creature, luke stetson and whoever else....

Alex's comment was freeing to me. Internalizing the idea that pop culture is something that's constantly changing is liberating. It means everyone is invited and that effecting pop culture is not just for the sneaker heads, the cool hunters, the musicians and the artists of the world.

The stage is open for everyone...it's just that very few really try.

 

Comments

[jenka]

that was so incredibly fascinating! thanks for turning me on to those interview videos. i just watched them both. really cool stuff! (plus, having once managed a circus, i totally vibe on the whole p.t. barnum as hero concept ;) ).

to overlook advertising's role in influencing culture is, indeed, to miss all the fun. there's a great faith popcorn quote that i rip off all the time, "culture is the new media." and it's also not one standard "pop culture," but the different "channels" of all sorts of different lifestyles. this is where the transmission of the values, aesthetics, ideals, etc. that define identity and community come from.

for a brand to *create* culture is to become a part of that transmission itself.

i actually wrote a bit on the topic here:

http://social-creature.com/create-culture

altho after watching those videos, i'm getting ideas for a whole new level of beadth of the application of this concept.

and by the way.... while whether or not sneakerheads actually create pop culture is debatable, that they do not do it in a vaccum outside of the influence of the brand is certain:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119317864699068959-email.html