In an exclusive interview, Bruno Bertelli, CCO of Publicis Groupe Italia and Global CEO of Le Pub, says that the most important thing for a brand to find its role within the culture
‘We need to pay more attention to how consumers spend their time, how they relate to each other and how these social behaviors create new forms of cultural capital.’ The statement by Bruno Bertelli, CCO of Publicis Groupe Italia and Global CEO of Leb Pub, owned by Publicis.
For the executive, the main discussion in the market today is the importance of culture in a society. And more: how this impacts the day to day of brands and strategies.
“Brand building now happens through cultural currency, the ability for a brand to usefully and playfully insert itself into the dominant conversations that shape the culture and the Zeitgeist,” Bertelli said in an exclusive interview with PROPMARK.
What is Currency Cultural and what is its impact on the market?
Today, the main discussion in our industry is about the importance of culture. Studies are proving a correlation between the presence of brands in a culture and how quickly those brands grow. But also how brands in culture are more relevant and meaningful to consumers. With content being less centralized and distributed across endless amounts of channels and platforms, the culture is becoming more and more niche. Creators, curators, literally everyone, can produce and influence culture and still earn money by serving specific communities rather than traditional large audiences. People’s desire for knowledge and expansion into more and more niches means that culture is created and nurtured everywhere. Cultural capital is being fueled by valuing, understanding and owning what people love: art, design, architecture, fashion, food, music, travel, self-transformation, well-being, sustainability choices. Brand building now happens through cultural currency, the ability for a brand to usefully and playfully insert itself into the dominant conversations that shape culture and the Zeitgeist.
You talked about capitalizing on culture. How to do this?
The role of brands transform. The old promise of brands that make you richer, prettier, stronger and cooler belongs to the past. Brands that do this are being exposed as backward and will not connect with the public. The first and most important is finding your role in culture. This allows a brand to develop a cultural point of view on the dominant conversations in the culture and to engage with current ideas that fit the category. And to capitalize on culture, we need to pay more attention to how consumers spend their time, how they relate to one another, and how these social behaviors create new forms of cultural capital. The future of our industry lies in our ability to create work that resonates with the culture.
How are consumers spending their time today?
Nowadays reaching the most expensive and complex consumer and their attention is increasingly specific, chained to smaller bubbles of interest and divided into an infinity of channels. This fragmentation makes reaching people increasingly complex and expensive. In the past, we paid more for a CD than today for a music streaming subscription. Same for DVDs and monthly subscription for infinite amounts of movie content served according to your specific preferences. Now consumers can have more different things at the same time. Easy access to infinite amounts of culture gives people the opportunity to like more things at once. Now you can go down any rabbit hole and have the ability to dive deep into anything, becoming an expert almost overnight.
That’s why to understand consumer growth and interest, brands must understand culture first. As culture becomes more granular and complex, a new mainstream is emerging at the intersection of different niches. Cultural capital is changing from status to wisdom. In fact, anyone can quickly become an expert in any subject and influence others with their knowledge. Being in the know has become more important than showing off. Consumers want to be the first to know, as if knowledge were the new status and culture gave them a seat at the head table.
Can you tell me a case that shows the use of Currency Cultural?
Finding a role in culture allows a brand to insert trends and conversations related to its category with content that has a strong, current and culturally relevant point of view. It allows a brand to choose which trends to ignore and which to address. When it came to working with Powerade, we had to understand what the dominant culture was in the category. What we saw was all these younger athletes who chose to protect their mental health or their bodies. Taking a break gave Powerade the opportunity to champion a new ideology. In a society that is overly goal-oriented, Powerade could argue for the importance of taking more breaks and embracing this new ideology, breaking out of the category with its new role in the culture, and talking to all those who are already fed up with the dominant culture of the superpowers. Rewrite the rules of winning and embracing rebellion against that culture. Showing how to be human first, helping to rewrite the rules of victory. Heineken was another case. It’s always been about not taking the conventional behavior that inhibits social life too seriously. In 2021, the anti-vaccination movement was a behavior that needed to be challenged if we wanted people to go back to enjoying a beer with others. Unexpectedly, it was the older generations who led the way with The Night is Young. Being culturally relevant also means understanding how to add value to people’s lives by finding those little things that improve our lives.
When the world was in a culinary frenzy due to the pandemic, we created the Barilla playlist timer on Spotify to help people get their pasta al dente. Owning a moment in the culture of a highly effective brand, but requires a lot of conviction. Of course, it must be relevant to your brand and big enough to be worthwhile. Another way to create cultural currency resonating with the culture of fandoms (Kingdom of the Fans). Since Heineken became a sponsor of the UEFA Women’s Champions League, we have tried to understand the culture of women’s football fans in order to connect with them. Or stepping into a global beer brand in tennis culture by creating a limited-edition shoe with one of the world’s most famous custom tennis designers has not only made a splash in the tennis communities, but the culture at large. That’s how the Heinekicks were born.
What is the main challenge for advertising today?
Think about how many different artists it took during last year’s Superbowl halftime show to ensure the brands reached and resonated with a wide enough audience. This fragmentation makes reaching people and consumers increasingly complex and expensive. Brands can no longer rely on paying attention. Paying only for commercial breaks that distract people from conventional consumption of culture and content is no longer enough. Very few major cultural moments like the Superbowl are mainstream enough to reach prime-time audiences all at once. A handful of major TV shows and soap operas, but beyond that, consumer attention is spread across different, often niche, media and channels. Brands can no longer rely on paying attention. I think, once again, the greatest discovery is always when simple and important things become extraordinary. We don’t need to go very far. I am referring to cultural values or simple gestures that create affective bonds. The main challenge for advertising today is having brands to identify cultural change at the local level. There is a fine line where you can create a common language nuanced by the local culture. when a brand can resonate. We live in a world where everyday life is intertwined with a path to purchase, and brands can no longer just communicate with consumers, but must earn their place in people’s everyday lives to deliver real value. The discovery would then be: to live in the culture.
What is the main lesson you leave for the advertising market in Brazil?
First, embrace persistence and determination. These are key factors. Campaigns or creative projects are like living creatures. The vision becomes an idea and then you build everything around it to deliver the right project to the client. It’s a seamless process, and when done effectively, you deliver values that resonate globally. It is important to keep in mind brand consistency and to keep in mind the purpose when relating to the category and the business. I believe that each market has its particularity and Brazil is recognized as one of the most creative in the world. Therefore, the Brazilian model allows the local market to be more innovative, smarter and perfectly integrated. Le Pub’s responsibility and approach will be to further enhance visionary inventiveness. Le Pub was incubated within Publicis Italia, one of the most creative agencies in the world, and has Heineken as its first client in the country. The idea is to be a creative hotshop with a startup mindset, quickly testing creativity and then scaling it. In Brazil, we consolidated our leadership last April and now we have a brand new team. I came here precisely to interact with this team and share our common ambition to build more than brands, build culture.
