When Everyone “Does Culture,” Credibility Matters More Than Ever

Culture marketing is clearly having a moment.

Across the industry, the landscape is shifting quickly. Independents are carving out space with specialist, scene-led expertise. Larger networks are reframing social, experiential and strategy teams around culture. Creator-first agencies are emerging out of talent businesses and PR models. And more brands are building in-house culture teams of their own.

From one angle, that is a good thing. It shows that brands are taking culture more seriously and recognising that relevance, community and participation cannot be treated as an afterthought.

But it also creates a new problem.

When everyone says they “do culture,” it becomes much harder to tell who is genuinely embedded in the communities they want to reach and who is simply borrowing the language, the look or the surface signals of culture to make campaigns feel current.

That distinction matters.

More choice does not always mean more clarity

There has probably never been more choice for brands wanting to work in culture. On paper, that should be a positive shift. There are more specialist partners, more routes into communities and more models for collaboration than there were even a few years ago.

But more choice has also made the market noisier.

The term “culture” has become broad enough to cover a huge range of offers, from deep community knowledge and long-standing relationships through to fairly standard campaign work with a trend-led wrapper on top. That makes it harder for brands to assess who is truly credible, and harder for the industry to maintain any clear standard around what good cultural work actually looks like.

In practice, this is where a lot of tension sits. Because cultural marketing is not just about knowing what is happening. It is about understanding why it matters, who it matters to and what role a brand has genuinely earned within it.

The difference between showing up and dressing up

One of the biggest risks in the current landscape is that culture becomes something agencies and brands style themselves around, rather than something they are meaningfully involved in.

That often looks polished from the outside. The references are right. The casting looks right. The tone feels current. But underneath, the relationship with the scene or community may be shallow, short-term or entirely transactional.

And audiences can usually feel the difference.

The most effective cultural work tends to come from a much deeper place. It is built on relationships, pattern recognition, trust and contribution over time. It understands that communities are not simply audiences to mine for relevance. They are ecosystems with their own values, histories and internal dynamics.

That is why credibility cannot be faked for long.

A more useful way to think about cultural work

For me, one of the most helpful shifts is moving from the idea of tapping into culture toward the idea of backing it.

That means asking different questions.

Not just: what scene is hot right now?
But: where do we have permission to show up?
What can we contribute that is genuinely useful?
Who benefits if we are involved?
And what does the relationship look like after the campaign has ended?

This is much closer to how I have been thinking about passion marketing: not just identifying areas of interest or energy, but backing the people, spaces and communities that shape them. That could be through long-term partnerships, opportunities, investment, storytelling, platforms or simply showing up in a way that adds value rather than extracting attention.

It is a more demanding model, but usually a stronger one.

The accountability question

The more the industry leans into culture, the more important accountability becomes.

At the moment, a lot of cultural credibility is self-defined. Agencies position themselves as culture-led because they know the language, hire the right people or have work that looks the part. Brands often judge success through campaign metrics, social response or short-term visibility. All of that has a place, but it is not enough on its own.

A more useful industry conversation might be around how we assess real cultural impact over time.

For example:

• are we leaving something behind that has value beyond the campaign?

• are we creating opportunities, access or support that matters to the community involved?

• are we building relationships that continue when there is no immediate commercial need?

• are we helping scenes grow sustainably, or just borrowing their equity for a moment?

• and are we being honest about the difference between proximity to culture and contribution to it?

Those are harder questions, but probably the right ones.

Final thought

It makes sense that more agencies and brands want to work in culture. Culture is where identity, influence, community and emotion all come together. It is powerful territory.

But that is exactly why the standard should be higher.

The future of this space should not just be about who can package culture most attractively. It should be about who can participate credibly, contribute meaningfully and build work that holds value beyond the campaign window.

That is where the real difference lies.

And as more of the industry moves in this direction, it feels worth asking how we hold ourselves - and each other - to that standard.