Ep 363: For The Culture ft. Marcus Collins

is on his way. And so that means Auntie Tiffany is in the stew, but not by herself. I'm in the stew with a guest today. Let me introduce this. I was looking at this guest like a little mini Bayer. I was like, well, day, I'm coming to the room. So our new guest today has a book called for the Culture. It's been endorsed by the CEO of McDonald's, Boom, Reddit, Boom, Delta Boom, Home Depot Boom, and many more major companies.

But bigger than that, y'all. He's run social media strategy for the Bee of Yon of the say Okay for many years Queen Betal all the rest of that stuff. I'm like, yeah, CEOs, all these billion dollar corporations, we don't care about that. We care about beyonceave on these parts. It's like we care about it all. But how amazing is that his name is Marcus Collins and he's here to talk to us today about like culture and what we why do we do the way we what we do,

why do we navigate the way we navigate? How does that affect our finances? And about his book? And so I'm super excited to welcome Marcus into the studio.

rather on stages. I mean, ultimately, I'm leveraging the power of culture, translating it from one entity to another and back and back again to help marketers be better versions of themselves, help students be better version of themselves, and help individuals be better versions of themselves.

one is it? It's all of them based on their cultural subscription. So for brands, I helped them see the world through other people's lenses, help them understand how people make meaning of the world around them and how their brands are translated through these lenses so that when these brands are communicating to consumers, they get a better understanding of how people see the world and how they're translating the world.

what are you doing driving a forward instead? They're like, oh, yeah, of course you would drive a forward because of who you are. That congruence between what the brand wants to mean and actually mean the minds of people is extremely powerful. Especially we want people to buy the same thing goes. We want people to vote the same thing goes. We want people to subscribe the same thing goes. We want

people to join our church. I mean, all of these things, which I argue in the book, they're all driven to get people to adopt behavior. Ultimately, that's behavioral adoption. And the truth is there's no force, no external force, more influential to human behavior than culture, and then more likely we are to tap into it, the more likely we are to get people to move.

different answers. And that's our problem, right, because we can't define anything concretely, how do we ever leverage fully leverage the sway the power that culture has. So I wrote the book to unpack this for practitioners, so you get a better understanding what culture is, have a better Rosetta stone to talk about it, and therefore be able to operationalize it. But then as I was writing the book, I started to identify that there are some personal reasons

at play here as well. Right. So, I'm born and raised in Detroit, and I had it, that's right. What up though? And I had to pinchant for math and science as a kid, right, And in those days, if you did well math and science and you were black, oh you're going to be an engineer full stop. So that's what I went into study because I thought that that's how I was supposed to do. But once I got into school, I realized, I don't think I want

to do this. My parents were like, well s, way to you finish your wait till you get through your get through your core courses. After your first year you love it. They go, okay, my mom's an academic, and I go, great, you know mom, Dad, I trust you. So I go into my second year and I go, oh, I definitely don't want to do this. I thought it was interesting, but I wasn't excited about it. I didn't want to do it for rest of my life. So I took some music theory courses to offset my terrible GPA,

and I fell in love with major sevens. I was like, oh, I want to be a songwriter. And I went home that summer I said Mom and Dad, I know I want to do for rest of my life. I want to be a songwriter. They're like, oh, no, you don't. That is not happening, fam, No, no, you don't want

to do that. So I finished my degree in engineering, but grudgingly, as soon as I graduated, went right into the music industry and what I realized some twenty years later, is that I didn't have the language to describe what I was experiencing. What I was experiencing were the cultural forces that dictate mandate in some ways, what's acceptable behavior for people like us, and for people like me and for many of us who look like us, Tiffany, is that if you want to be successful, you pursue certain

career trajectories. If you do well in math and science, then you're either going to be an engineer or a doctor. Like that's just what you do. And anything outside of that is unacceptable. Anything outside of that is frowned upon. And this is really what culture is. Culture is this system of conventions and expectations that's acceptable behavior, acceptable trajectories for people like us, and as a result, we take

on those behaviors, we do those things. And because I didn't have the language to describe what was happening to me, I didn't have a lot of agency to navigate through it. All I had was that my parents is tripping, right, But what was really happening is that my parents themselves were adhering to the cultural forces of what good parents are supposed to do. You're supposed to push your children towards things that are going to be potentially the most

beneficial for them, even if it's not what they want. Right, And we're all being influenced by these forces that tells us what it means to be normal. And I thought that this book would help not only practitioners be better at their jobs and getting people to adopt behavior, but also help us individuals citizens navigating this cultural rule that we live in, navigate these forces that tells us what people like us ought to do.

What are some things that people can do?

So I'm I'm a professor, so I can't help myself. If we go back in time for centuries the global GDP was zero, practically non existent, which means that people were not entering in exchange. We weren't buying and consuming things. If we were, it was very, very minimal. And we're doing it before utilitary utilitarian purposes, only right functionality, and that waseenth into the sixteenth century where Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth in England says, you know, I can use consumption as

a means of egrandizement as a means of power. And here's how it worked in her mind was that royalty had everything. They had all the wealth, and the people closest to royalty, that was nobility, that they would have a little bit less, and the people way beneath them, the peasants had nothing. And the idea is that it would keep royalty in power because they had the most.

It will force nobility to keep consuming so that they can stay close to royalty, and it will keep the people at the bottom of the peasants looking up, aspiring to be more by consuming more. Right, and then Queen Elizabeth could ration out commerce or ration out capital to people and they would love her for it because it

would help them rise up the social hierarchy. You fast forward a couple centuries later, you start seeing a little bit of upticking economics in northern Europe, and they started businesses started to make more money, so they paid their employees more money. Their employees started to spend more money, so business made more money. Employees started making more money, so they spent more money. You started getting the cycle

of consumption. It massively explodes during the Indestrial Revolution. The same thing goes today because the point is that people weren't buying way back in the sixteenth century. They weren't spending or consuming for functional needs. They were consuming for psychological and sociological needs as a way of signaling who they are and where they sit in the social hierarchy. The same thing goes today that we buy, we consume as a way of signaling who we are in the

world and where we sit in a social hierarchy. And the further you were down the social totem pole, the more and the more motivated you were to consume as a way to signaling that you weren't at the bottom. And you take marginalized communities like people of color, people like us. We then say that I have to consume as a way to signal who I am, and I spend four hundred bucks on this just to be like

you ain't right? So what does that mean for us that if we know this, if we are now aware that these are the forces that are motivating us to consume, that they're not with they're not they're not within us,

they're without us. There is they're they're pushing on us, then we can subvert them by having much more discretion with what we consume or how much we consume of it, not to keep up with the Joneses, as it were, uh, but to signal our understanding of these forces and also create new communities around people who decide not to consume just for the sake of consumption.

that he has money. He said it indicated that he had money because he's now exchanged it for this thing. He was like, my lambo, my dress, my outfit, It's a receipt. That's right to show I once had hundreds of thousands of not millions of dollars and now I have stuff, right. And I just thought that was so like, those things are really a receipt of wealth once, not that you want to keep money and not doing anything

with it. But I just thought that that was like, I was really shocked at his insight, you know.

that dude's doing it. That is I am higher up the social hierarchy thanks to Queen Elizabeth and the irony of this, I suppose, is that the people who have the most, who are most well off, they actually live more innocuous lives. I e. You don't see the labels, you don't see what they're, what they're what they have, right, Like, so somewhere's they don't wear a bag of a Louis Vuitton bag when they go into an event in New York City because they leave their bag in their driver's car. Right.

So it's almost the ability to not to not explicitly show wealth is a sign of wealth. But when you don't, you don't explicit when you don't have wealth at least where you're trying to signal it, you use consumption as a way to do that very thing.

everyone's talking about. Like, oh, like quiet luxury is to your point, Like they're like, oh, look at Bill Gates, you know, like nondescript khakis and whatever sweater versus like Doug you down to the socks, you know, and so like there's been this push but there's a lot of colassiesm you know, like like looped into like quiet luxury versus I guess what you know, almost like being ghetto fabulous or whatever, Like what does that mean? So what's your take? I mean, have you heard of this quiet

luxury movement? And what's your take on that? Like how that reflects on a person identity and brand and culture.

Elizabeth was after that. We consume as a way of signaling where we are in a social hierarchy, and we have these these social and psychological wants to feel like we're part of something, to feel like we're we're accepted, right, and therefore consumption helps us do that very thing, you know, go back to Kanye because that song is just so powerful. All falls down. He say, you make us hate ourselves and love your wealth. That's why Charity's asking what a

ball is that? I mean, the idea there is that consumption becomes a way by which we ingratiate ourselves into society and try to find means to raise our social status so that we get more access to things. But at the same time, when you have it, you don't need to show it, so you find you know, Warren Buffett drives like the same Oldsmobile from forever long ago,

because he's like, why would you need multiple cars? Plus, as soon as you buy a car, it decreases in value, right, most cars, So you drive off the lot, it's it costs lest it depreciates as soon as you drive it off the lot.

that that song is. And this is the power by the way of cultural production, right, the way that we express who we are and where our identity is subscribed. I mean you stick on the Kanye piece. My wife and I had our eldest daughter. We were driving a small little hatchback car living in New York City, so we had like a little bit of car and my wife was like, you know, I think we need to get to I think we probably need to get an

suv Nan Greed. And we had a list of SUVs that we were considering, but there was one SUV that we would not buy, not even and it was even on the consideration set, even though empirically it performed well. And that was a Toyota raft for why because Kanye told us, what do you think I rapped for to push an fing raft for? I mean, that's the power of cultural like it signals to us what we ought to have. And look at the dominant cultural production of

the predominant Black culture is hip hop music. Yeah, and hip hop tells us what to wear, what's exactly, and consumption becomes a way of signaling that. Now, I don't want to think. I don't want to be sort of the wet blanket on consumption, because consumption also signals or helps us make our culture material. Right. If you're a Muslim, right, you would wear a hijab as a way of a signaling not only it's an outward expression of an inward belief,

signaling who you are and what you believe. That that's super powerful. And her jobs can either be created by hand or you can consume it by someone who made it by hand. Consumption in that matter or in that way makes one's culture material, and that's super powerful. Right, Like I grew up watching Spike Lee movies as a kid. Consume those Spike Lee movies. But those Spike Lee movies help give me an understanding of race relations in this country. Right,

So consumption isn't all bad. But as they say, all you know, anything in access can be problematic.

powerful ways, whether you're a practitioner or individual. Navigating this cultural landscape that we live in and particularly thinking about the stories that we are told, the stories that we tell ourselves, and then how we use those stories to make sense of the world around us. I do this exercise with my students here at the University of Michigan, you know. I have them do a media diet inventory, right. I tell them to think about all the shows, all

the movies you've watched in the last three months. They write them down and then identify who is the main character, what's their age, their race, their gender, their their origins, who are they right? And then look at the antagonists, the villain, their rage, their race, their gender, their origins, their ethnicities right, and then what are the stories that

are told about each one of them? And then do the same for the stories that you tell, what you post, what you don't post, what you post about, and who is the main character in those posts? Right? And as you with those two things together, you start to ask yourself, oh man, the stories that I tell about myself, about who I am and how I fit in this world is oftentimes informed by and shaped by the stories that

I ingest, the media, diet that I consume. And if those things be the case, if those things seem to be incongruence, which they mostly are, at least in my with my students, then you tell yourself, Okay, I need to start taking in different media, listen to different stories, watching different things, listen to different things, so that my worldview might be shaped differently because of what I ingest.

they think this because how else would they know. They're watching and consuming the media that's pushed out about black Americans. And I was like it just never because you know, I'm living here, so I'm like I can see what the reality is that there is a you know, we're not a monolith. There's so many different types of people. But if all you ever watch are like the Robber, the Gangster, the you know, it is black and the thing.

I just couldn't believe because I'm like but because in my mind, I'm like, we all look alike, and it's like, yeah, but in America it seems like everybody is so terrible, and I just thought, wow, that's what That was the first time that it hit me that it's not just it's just a movie. It's not because this is what we're showing the world what to believe about us. And so yeah, it was just like really like mind blowing.

For instance, I went to Austria for the first time last year, and when I got there, I was really uncomfortable because the whole time I was thinking about, Yo, Nazis were up and down this place, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, yeah, they resistant for sure, but like, Nazis were up and down this place, and I just felt so uncomfortable, And in that split second, I realized, oh, man, if I were coming to the United States, I would be super uncomfortable too. It's like, y'all enslaved people y'all

were hanging people from these not that long ago. By the way, it's like, this is what y'all was doing. It was a part of your normal cultural practice. It was acceptable, right, And as a result, I go, man, I'm over here, you know, feeling uncomfortable and a certain way about Austrians when they come to States, they probably feel a certain way about us. And that's the things that you know, we are all a villain in someone's story,

depending on the stories that are told about us. And the idea is that if we want the world to take different shape, then we have to change the way that we see the world, and oftentimes that requires us hearing new stories and telling ourselves new stories, because as a result, the world change.

when you wake up. Maybe you had an hamster when you were a kid, and it was sneezing because there were actually was an animal in the room. But a corrective experience will show you like I wake up and I didn't sneeze. I wake up and I didn't sneeze. So then the new experiences teach you that this is the new this is the new norm, this is the

new belief. And so so I just wanted to pivot and talk about like because I have my own business, I have several businesses, and I'm curious as to you know, with your lens, what brands are getting it right when it comes to like connecting to culture across the board, Like what brands do you see that you're like, this is what they're getting it right? And I mean, I don't know how comfortable you feel what brands are not getting it right?

We dress a certain way, we act a certain way, we talk a certain way, and we express our cultural subscription through the cultural production that we take in which I talk in great, great length in the book. So which brands fare the best? The brands that fear the best are the ones that are congruent with the beliefs that people have. That is, I wear this brand. I use this brand not only because of what it is functionally, but what it says about who I am, that it becomes a shortcut to my identity.

You have the long standing ones like you know, Louis Vauton Gucci to stick around quite longer, But the ones that are most powerful are the ones that become extensions of my identity. Take Nike for instance. Nike believes that every human body is an athlete. That's what it believes at its core, that we're all athletes, big, small, short, tall, were all athletes, and as a brand, Nike helps people

realize their best athletic self. So when I'm tying up my Nikes before my run, even though I am not a good athlete, I was a swimmer, not a runner, right, I kind of feel like I could do this thing right because of the thoughts in the thoughts and feelings are evoked when I engage the brand Nike, right. Even we see this with human beings. Beyonce. Beyonce is an artist. She's a singer, a dancer, performer, and actress, entrepreneurial mobile.

She has all these different hyphens, that's what she does. What does Beyonce believe in women's empowerment? Yes, and she's been about that since day one. Beyonce has transcended her category as being an artist as being an entertainer, and she operates at the ideological level of being about women's empowerment, which opens her up to do whatever she wants to do. She's not bound by the confines of being a musical artist. She is liberated by her point of view of the world.

And the people who support Beyonce is is because her music is good and it is right. It's because they see the world the way she does.

I'm going to take over the world's right. So no, I love that, and I I know those are great examples of like brands that get it right.

So it means for brands, then for brands who want to be the best version of themselves, it means identifying what do I believe, how do I see the world, and then how do I manifest that in the way that I show up in the world, whether it's my products or my messaging as well.

I just was reading this article that Sheen. There's this new one called Tamu that is overtaking Sheen, and it's it's the fastest downloading app right now in the Apple Store. And so to your point, there's no point of view there. They're just we sell the cheapest closed, and someone's like, well, then we can sell even cheaper.

eighty five blades on the shaver. There's nothing left that we can add to to continuing innovation. So what do we have to do? Drop the price? Now we're in commodity land, like this is what happens. I mean, I remember growing up there was no pizza chain better than Pizza Hut. Growing up, Pizza Hut was like the pinnacle. We get Pizza Hut. Okay, Mom, okay, Dad, you're really excited about that, right, Little Caesar says, oh, all pizza is five dollars.

for anything. And we know this intuitively because we go the brand stands for something, but what really means the brands stands in for something, something meaningful, some ideology beyond what they do.

can go ahead and grab yourself a copy. I suggested, especially if you so many of our listeners you know, are interested in business or starting a business, but also too if you're looking to shift the way you think about money and how you and your family navigate, so you can see like, oh, I actually don't have to behave in this way as it relates to my personal finances or my business. So anything I didn't say, anything you want to share with the people as a last parting gift for us.