Cultural Capital, Volume 1

Measuring the Real Value of a Brand in the Culture-Led Economy

Cultural Capital // Volume 01

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Welcome to Cultural CapitalŽ. A unique new way of measuring the value of a brand in the real world—in culture.

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Cultural Relevance

Culture rules our lives. It is our beliefs, our values, our language, our interests, our passions, our aspirations... it is the way we identify with our world. For anything to be relevant to us, it has to have a role in our life and for anything to become popular in our life, it must have a cultural role. The more cultural relevance something has, the more valuable to us it becomes: an artist’s painting, a pop star, a city landmark, a product, a design, even a brand. Yet while this intangible cultural equity is the source of all popularity, there has never been a viable method of measuring it. Until now.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Introduction

Consumerism was born of the marriage of capitalism and democracy. A clever ideology set in play to influence society’s belief that buying, owning and consuming the things we want will increase the quality of life and promote the social good.

The media provided uninterrupted and direct access to millions of people who were raised on a steady diet of brands—all designed to make them feel happier, sexier, more confident, more successful... a satisfied consumer.

Consumerism took hold of pop culture, it cultivated the idea of being an individual, promoted the importance of self-identity. And it worked.

Economies grew stronger, companies increased their profits, employment was up, people felt free to enjoy a better life. The prosperity symbolized by the brands consumed gained massive status, influencing culture not only domestically, but across the world as trophies of cultural popularity.

But as we know, this story changed. Or more to the point, we are living through the start of that change. The flow of influence in culture is reversing.

Society is now influencing consumer culture through our values and it is changing everything.

Corporations have shifted in perception from icons of prosperity to distrusted symbols of mindless greed. Consumers are paying the price of excessive living, and materialism is giving way to conservatism and sustainability. The ability to influence the masses through paid media is being replaced with the open conversations of social media.

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New Cultural Ideas

Meanwhile the new generation is coming of age, nurtured on collectivist values, respectful of community and environment, eager to perform their role as citizens in society and find personal success by contributing to the greater good.

Social values are culturally charged, and the popularity of materialism has given

way to creativity and self-expression.

Ownership has been replaced with sharing, and digital startups are rapidly replacing the ambitions of corporate career ladder.

For businesses and brands to succeed in these changed conditions, capitalism must change. It must answer to culture.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Cultural Capitalism The Change in Consumerism Social Change

Social activism and the role of social media are a well-documented pairing affecting change. Public opinion influences political, environmental and corporate behavior across the world.

The role of social values influencing purchasing behavior is also leading to a fundamental rethinking in the structure of capitalism.

In a 2011 report, Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School published his opinions on this subject in a paper entitled, "Creating Shared Value." His work focused on redefining capitalism to create a value model where both economic and societal benefit is generated. The implications of these fundamental business principles go far beyond the marketing department, demanding that for brands to succeed, it is imperative they adopt and reflect the social needs of their consumers in culture.

Digital Impact The role of social media and digital connectivity is at a tipping point for

brands. The real difference now is BIG data. Facebook, TwitterSM, YouTube and the other leaders in social media were originally based on ideas—smart ideas of what people might want to do using the new Internet technologies available—but intuitive ideas all the same.

Now, for the first time in history, the level and quality of data these organizations have gathered means that there is a meaningful insight to guide decisions.

Changing Culture Affects Brands

Brands Perform in Culture

Our lives are constructed of what we think, feel and do. Our cultural interests and passions are fundamental to what makes us tick.

It’s no new news that brands try to tap into and associate themselves with these interests—whether it’s sponsoring our favorite people and events, advertising within our favorite media content, or finding ways to enter the cultural conversation taking place at anytime.

Brand preference is all a question of relevance within our individual lives, within our culture. If a brand is not relevant to us, even though it may be widely available and we may be well aware of it, it simply is not within our consideration for consumption, as it would not be useful or beneficial.

Yet while much has been done to measure brand preference, little focus has been placed on measuring the relationship between brands and culture—the relationship that creates preference.

Longstanding equity measurements seek to validate advertising in its ability to influence positive preference for a brand, but little if anything has been done to really understand how brands can influence their relevance in culture. The Cultural Capital® Study has been designed to answer this need, by creating the first analytical approach to measuring a brand’s cultural relevance, and providing diagnostic tools that can deliver meaningful insight to guide the strategy of a brand.

Business

Shared Value

Society

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What’s Inside 1

How to Measure Culture

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Analyzing the Cultural Capital® of Technology Brands

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Culture’s Most Relevant Technology Brands

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The Power of Cultural Capital

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How to Increase Your Brand's Cultural Capital 13

Cultural Capital // Volume 01

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How to Measure Culture Introducing the Given the fundamental role culture plays in driving Cultural Capital Index a brand’s performance, we believed it must be

possible to find a suitable way to measure cultural popularity and relevance of a brand.

What we found is that not only could we measure popularity and relevance, but we could in fact value it accurately—in effect, we could put a number on culture.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

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How to Measure Culture // Chapter 1

Measuring Culture Is Complex and So Are People The first challenge of measuring the value of something in culture is to create a system to measure culture itself.

To do this we segmented popular culture as a series of related genres based around interests, behaviors and social values.

Then we considered which interests, behaviors and social values formed the motivations for engaging with a genre, and how actively audiences engage.

Finally, we constructed a process to

classify cultural influence, so that we could understand how different audience dynamics within genre groups play a role in the cultural relevance of the brand.

While the ultimate goal of creating this system was to provide meaningful data that measured a brand’s Cultural Capital, our top priority was to ensure that whatever methodology we used could be operationally pliable in order to apply it to the various challenges a brand faces.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

A Three-Step Methodology 1. The Audience

First, we isolate audience groups for a specific brand— either by age, life stage, demographic, gender or other defining factors.

Then we examine their values—both personal and social—to understand how an audience sees the world and how they relate with others. What are their socio-cultural motivations? What personal and social beliefs drive them?

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The Audience My life.

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Social Influence We correlate personal views with the sense of influence individuals have within their socio-cultural groups.

How do they see themselves in their social groups?

How socially active are they? Do they look to follow or lead opinions within their cultural genres of interest?

Do they seek out the latest trends, or follow mainstream popularity?

This form of influence segmentation allows us to understand the dynamics in play within overall cohorts, ensuring that future communications can talk to both influencers and followers in meaningful and engaging ways.

Personal Values What I believe.

Importance How my perception influences my choice.

Influences What guides my values.

Perceptions How I view my world.

Social Values What we believe.

Investment How much time and money I spend on what I do.

How to Measure Culture // Chapter 1

2. Cultural Engagement

If we are to create a brand strategy designed to influence consumers through their cultural interests, then it’s important to understand what they’re "into" and how heavily it shapes their lives.

We took a view of culture and how the interests that drive people manifest as cultural genres. This can be broken down into 24 inter-relating genres.

Then, each of these genres is filtered through a values lens by which any consumer or audience perceives their world.

So while fashion is represented broadly as a cultural genre, it is fragmented into many sub-genres such as: High Fashion, Streetwear, Sportswear, Basics, Luxury and so forth. It is also contextually different depending on the consumer type. Or, in other words, one person’s aspirational fashion label and style can be polar opposite to someone else's.

By taking this approach to cultural genre segmentation we can build an understanding of which genres are important to a consumer and which are not.

3. Brand Preference and Relevance

With insight into the values and cultural engagement of an audience, we then explore the brands that really matter to that audience for any specific cultural genre.

We’re able to track top-of-mind/most popular brands based on any number of varying characteristics derived from their values, attitudes and behaviors.

Doing this allows us to capture the attributes these popular brands convey to the audience that engages within a genre, and then interpret their behaviors to translate learnings to the brand in question.

The Brand's Role in Life For the purposes of the beta study, we selected four basic criteria for measuring brand preference based on the role it plays in someone’s life: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Useful in my daily life Reflects my personal values Reflects how I want others to see me Relates to my personal interests

These criteria can be adapted to evaluate any specific measures of a brand or audience type.

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Cultural Engagement How my perceptions form roles in my life: Entertaining / Experience Social / Shared Useful / Helpful

Brand Preference How my purchase choices serve a role in my life.

Media Preferences How my information sources serve a role in my life.

Through the survey structure, we question the level of importance a genre plays in their lives and measure their level of engagement based on time and money spent within that specific genre.

What this allows us to do is rank consumers by their level of interest and engagement to qualify how "into" any particular genre they are.

Likewise, given our knowledge of their values and self-perception of their own influence, we are able to gauge their level of social influence within and impact upon their favorite genres. This helps to determine whether they are actively shaping a genre—following it closely and socializing with what they follow, or whether they are simply a casual observer buying into the mainstream.

For the purposes of the beta study, we simplified the measure of engagement as those "into" the genre (who were heavily interested), versus those who were "less into" the genre, with lighter levels of interest and time/money spent.

Cultural Relevance is measured as the difference in engagement level between people heavily "into" any genre against those "less into" the same genre.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Measuring Cultural Capital Is Competitive Given that cultural relevance is dependent on the level of interest, engagement and available brand choices within a category, we realized that we needed to use a relative measurement approach to score it.

The Cultural Capital Score we assign to a brand is based on the relevance that brand has with any audience of people "into" the measured genres of culture, versus those "less into" the genres. We measure the difference between the more and less engaged audience members using a chi square statistic.

So if those "into" versus those "less into" show no difference in opinion, there is a zero score.

In simpler terms, the higher the score with people into something, versus the lower the score with those less into something, the higher degree of cultural relevance due to the change in popularity.

Naturally there’s still the overall level of popularity any brand measured may have within an aspect of the cultural genre, but it’s the difference that shows the relevance, credibility and ability to engage an audience.

The Final Score

The Cultural Capital Index is unique in that it measures cultural relevance in a way that allows the brand to diagnose its performance in culture.

It gives a sense of the overall level of popularity a brand has within any given genre, but more importantly, it shows how important that brand’s relevance is by determining the difference in appeal of the brand between those heavily interested in a genre versus those casually following it.

For many brands, the starting point is the overall Cultural Capital Score.

By aggregating the genre-specific scores, we’re able to determine the overall differences between brands to see who the real winners and losers are in terms of cultural relevance.

The real benefit of the Index Score is the many ways it allows a brand to diagnose performance in specific genres, and to isolate stronger and weaker areas.

Again, the starting point is the audience. If you realize that a vast proportion of your audience is into fashion in a big way, and you can understand why your brand is underperforming, then you are best positioned to do something about it.

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How to Measure Culture // Chapter 1

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands Measuring the Real Value of The Cultural Capital study provides a competitive audit the World’s Most Successful of brands within a shared category. For the beta Technology Brands in Culture test study, we selected seven of the most popular technology-based brands to measure how popular and relevant they are in culture. We did this in part due to their high recognition and engagement and also because of their crucial role in millions of lives.

During the course of 2012, technology convergence and planned product launches have led these brands to aggressively compete for share of consumer spend, time and attention across an array of different platforms, technologies and social uses.

Our study sought to understand who holds the competitive advantages in culture to come out winning and who has the most to lose.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Technology Brands in Focus Founded in 1995 for book lovers, Amazon.com is now the world’s largest online retailer. Amazon® boasts 15 retail websites (including Zappos.comSM and Endless.com) and 2 million + partners that use their e-commerce platform. In addition to revolutionizing e-commerce, Amazon now offers cloud-based services, most notably for their Kindle® line of e-readers. As a go-to shopping destination, Amazon processes and fulfills a huge number of orders daily—on Black Friday 2010, there were a record-setting 158 orders per second.

2011 Ad Spend $1.4B

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

26 (+32%) $12.8B

14 (+37%) $37.6B

4.7M

Established in 1976 with the Apple® personal computer, the company now boasts an array of design-centric and user-friendly devices at a premium price point. These highly sought-after products include Mac® computers, iPod®, iPhone® and iPad® devices, as well as software such as iTunes®. The company has turned into a major business and cultural force worth more than all the gold in the Federal Reserve, and commands lines at product launches that rival those at Black Friday. Upon the death of founder Steve Jobs in 2011, the outpouring of millions of fans made it a cultural event in and of itself—not surprising since there are now more iPhones sold each day than babies born.

2011 Ad Spend $933M

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

8 (+58%) $33.5B

1 (+84%) $153B

6.4M

A dot-com bubble darling, eBay® is an online consumer auction and shopping site that started in 1995 and continues to be successful with over 100 million active users. Companies and individuals use the site to sell everything from the world’s fastest car to purses. There is so much activity on the site that a pair of shoes is sold every seven seconds and an iPad is resold every 2.3 minutes. eBay also owns PayPal®, an online money transfer service and StubHubSM, a ticket re-selling platform.

2011 Ad Spend $977M

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

36 (+16%) $9.8B

82 (+15%) $10.7B

3.0M

Started as a dorm-room project by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and friends in 2004, Facebook has now seemingly taken over the world. Currently 1 in 13 people in the world have a Facebook account, and it’s expected to hit 1 billion users in mid-2012. Facebook accounts for one in five page views in the world, and 9 precent of online traffic in the U.S. When Facebook filed for an IPO in 2011 it was valued at $90 billion.

Facebook has also made its way to cinematic culture with The Social Network, an Academy Award-winning film about the creation of the site.

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2011 Ad Spend

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

$427M

N/A

35 (+246%) $19B

67M

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Originally a search engine, Google® started in 1995 and has now expanded to include a portfolio of nearly 50 web-based products and services, including Gmail®, YouTube®, Google Play™, Picasa™, Chrome™ and Google+™. The company is now branching into the operating system space as a platform provider for the Android™ operating systems, Chromebook™ and Google TV™. Google is ubiquitous—it sees an enormous volume of traffic with over 1 billion searches per day. YouTube also sees huge numbers with over 4 billion videos viewed daily and boasts interactive users. More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month than all of the major U.S. TV networks made in their entire 60-year history.

2011 Ad Spend $1.54B

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

4 (+27%) $55.3B

2 (-2%) $111.5B

9.8M

Ubiquitous on PCs and Macs alike, Microsoft® Office products have made Microsoft a household name and long-term blue-chip company. Founded in 1976, Microsoft saw a steady rise to omnipotence. Slow movement to touch interfaces has left Microsoft striving to regain popularity with products such as Windows 8, the new Windows phone, SkyDrive® and the popular Xbox 360® video game console.

2011 Ad Spend $1.9B

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

3 (-3%) $59B

5 (+2%) $78B

1.7M

As the new kid on the block at just six years old, Twitter users' 140-character status updates have infiltrated pop culture (@ - #Friday). The microblogging site isn’t as widespread as Facebook, but its users are devoted— the 140-million person user base sends over 340 million Tweets daily. The service is particularly popular as a news feed and a way to connect with celebrities (addicts include Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and Ashton Kutcher). Twitter has also played a major role in political activities such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement.

2011 Ad Spend

2011 Interbrand Ranking, Movement & Valuation

2011 Millward Brown BrandZ™ Ranking, Movement & Valuation

Number of Facebook Fans (May 2012)

N/A

N/A

N/A

8.6M

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Measuring Cultural Capital with Young Adults For the beta test of the Cultural Capital research methodology, we homed in on this dynamic group of young culture-focused consumers to understand what’s driving their brand choices when it comes to culture.

Not only do they represent the most active, dynamically engaged cultural audience, they are also at the heart of the technology brands we chose to examine, so we were sure the findings would prove revealing and relevant to the brands in question.

Our study includes young adults living in the USA’s largest culture-leading cities:

• • • •

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18-24 years old L.A. and NYC (DMAs) Equal male/female split Multicultural

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Testing Cultural Genres To provide a meaningful sample of data, we restricted the Cultural Genres we tested to four large, culturally relevant genres:

FASHION

MUSIC

MEDIA

TECHNOLOGY

These were chosen due to their broad popularity in the day-to-day lives of young adults, which ensured a high level of respondent participation.

We included respondents in genre-based questions if they confirmed they were at least "somewhat interested" in the genre in their day-to-day life. We then further segmented those respondents into groups of "into" the genre versus "less into" based on their level of interest and engagement.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Young Adult Culture Young adults continue to represent the most dynamic force in culture. They maintain a voracious appetite to discover their own sense of self-identity by exploring and experimenting within their cultural landscape. They influence both those older and younger than themselves through their impact in cultural genres from fashion and style, to music, language and beyond.

In previous generations, this active, expressive and often experimental period of individuation in life has created a significant disconnection from the previous adult generation in control of socio-political and economic policy. Through the explosion of post-World War youth culture, we have now seen three generations of young adults coming of age and exerting their beliefs in very different ways.

Today, being one of the 30.67 million young adults in the U.S. population aged 18 to 24 represents a unique set of conditions. These conditions influence and absorb the most dynamic shift in our culture’s history—a shift that is rapidly reshaping consumerism.

Youth unemployed

17.1%

of Americans below 25 are unemployed

Living at home with parents

59%

of men 18-24 in 2011

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48.8%

of American below 25 are unemployed during the summer months

50%

of women 18-24 in 2011

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Connecting to the Internet

94%

of 18-29s use the Internet

Average income levels

$31,240

average income for those ages 18-24 in 2009

87%

are on a social networking site at least 1-2 days/week

$28,322

average income for those ages 18-24 in 2010

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Culturalism Replaces Materialism Emerging into early adulthood in the wake of 2008’s global economic crisis has forced this generation’s young adults to reframe their sense of ambition. In many ways, they have been raised for success, with high standards of education and nurturing families. Then they have subsequently watched their career paths disappear in front of them.

However, the new economic reality has also been a catalyst to refocus the priorities of today’s young adults. The ever-developing Internet has provided the perfect platform for them to apply their optimistic, collectivist values and sense of enterprise in order to redirect their career ambitions, ethics and societal beliefs into a mass effect of micro-initiatives.

Technology has also fueled their creative resources and removed the barriers of self-expression traditionally reserved for celebrities and media broadcasting.

Combining the conditions of restricted financial means, access to every conceivable source of inspiration, the tools to create, book-smart ability and open access to personal broadcasting has

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resulted in the heightened importance placed on gaining social popularity through culturalism rather than materialism.

This notion of culturalism can be measured on many levels in young adult behavior today, whether it’s mining the past to find real vintage treasures, acquiring skills and crafts, customizing belongings, shooting films, uploading songs, or simply in the language and humor of tweets and status updates. For young adults in today’s society, cultural currency is of far deeper value than things you can buy, mostly because it is a genuine reflection of who you are, not just an image you’ve purchased.

For this reason, brands must realize that operating in a market where the currency traded is cultural popularity means that a brand’s perception must authentically deliver on a promise to provide a significant role in the life of the purchaser. It must meet the many cultural values expected of the brand’s parent company, provide a source of entertainment or usefulness for consumers, and deeply immerse itself within their interests.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Fear of Anonymity If we accept that cultural expression is de-positioning the dominance of material ownership as the new measure of social popularity for young adults, then conversely it must be anonymity, which is the new anxiety replacing "being broke."

Indeed if creativity, funny/smarts and self-expression are rewarded by likes, friend requests, views, sharing and followers, it creates a very public scale of popularity where the popular rise is pseudo-celebrity and influence, while those not part of the conversation are simply ignored.

At a stage in life where gaining independence means figuring out how your life matters, it’s no longer good enough, or often possible, to aim to prove yourself through financial/ material standing. Now, to matter you must play an active role in culture through diverse contributions driven by your broad social agenda.

For brands, this perspective provides a clear insight into how to help consumers: by enabling their cultural expression. Help them find their voice, provide them with the means to increase their social exposure, facilitate their contribution to the cultural conversation, and promote their ideas and initiatives. By using the marketing funds and the public platform the brand holds for the benefit of young adult expression, brands will translate actions into brand advocacy and purchasing loyalty.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Fashion The Role of Values in Fashion

All survey respondents completed general values/attributes questions, which we can then apply to cultural genre responses to determine which values are seen as most relevant to people "into" that genre versus those "less into" it.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Appearance was the most important value/attribute of people who are into fashion. It was also the trait that carried the greatest distinction between people into fashion versus those less into it. So it’s clear to see that if you’re marketing image, beware that Appearance only truly matters to those seeking it out.

In fact, we found that Nature, Environment and Wealth were all traits seen as more important to those individuals less into fashion. This shows that image carries less weight with consumers of average levels of interest in fashion, in comparison with concerns that carry a deeper social role.

What we found most surprising was that Public Image and Social Status were seen as the least relevant traits of the top scoring values, regardless of how into fashion someone was. That said, the preference in Public Image and Social Status was definitely a polarizing factor. It was seen as far more relevant to people into fashion versus less into it.

In every case, people into fashion displayed a higher level of relevance from all these top traits when compared to less engaged individuals.

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“Appearance only truly matters to those seeking it out.”

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Key Insights

Don’t underestimate the role of social values over personal values when communicating to the average fashion follower. Certainly with the younger adult consumers questioned in L.A. and NYC, mainstream values tell a different story than die-hard fashionistas.

While Appearance, Social Status and Public Image are still very much the key to relevance with people into fashion, the key to unlocking the connection between the core fashion followers and the mainstream fashion consumer is achieved by translating the aesthetic into a deeper social role based in success.

Perceptions

When we studied the psychographic portion of the survey we examined the responses relating to each genre that showed the most significant response levels.

For fashion, one of the biggest findings was the difference in perception between the role of advertising and the sense of self-image.

Twenty nine percent of those less into fashion stated that they find advertising annoying, whereas 81 percent of those into fashion see it as a great way to learn about products and services.

It is often assumed that younger audiences are cynical and resistant to advertising and marketing from brands, but certainly this shows the importance of relevance in communications. In fact, we found that those heavily into fashion saw the role of advertising as an important component of their engagement with their fashion interests and brands.

Equally, we found “Image carries less weight with that people into fashion value being consumers of average levels of seen as cool. This interest in fashion, in comparison could sound like an with concerns that carry a obvious statement, deeper social role.” but what it really tells us is that fashion is a by-product of status, not something driven by the appreciation of design. We found people into fashion also enjoy being the center of attention socially more than those less into it and see themselves as a source of what’s cool, while people less into fashion looked to others to determine their sense of cool.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Fashion’s Most Popular Brands: Into Fashion FOREVER 21® Gucci® H&M® Nike American Eagle®/COACH®

Less into Fashion FOREVER 21 Nike® Old Navy® Levi’s® GAP®

Among the cosmopolitan 18-24 year-olds surveyed, we asked unprompted which brands were most relevant to them in relation to their fashion interests, as a baseline for establishing the genre.

We found consistently across both people into and less into fashion that the brands they purchased most heavily and frequently also ranked as most relevant. "Fast Fashion" retail brands were the real winners, with Forever 21 seen as consistently the most universally appealing. H&M was also extremely popular, but skewed toward those into fashion, indicating a higher level of relevance among more fashion-forward respondents, but less engaging with people less into fashion.

Perhaps the most significant brand appearing in responses was Gucci. While not appearing at all with those less into fashion, Gucci averaged the second most popular brand with people into fashion, and in most cases pushed H&M into third place, losing out only to Forever 21.

Given that the survey respondents were all of an average income level, we can determine that the people into fashion were into Gucci, not because of consumption level, but because of brand aspiration.

This is not surprising when we correlate Gucci’s preference against the values traits people into fashion shared. For this group of young fashion-focused consumers, Gucci is the brand most closely representing their aspirations, shaped by the media and music celebrities who influence their tastes. Social Status, Public Image and Wealth are all traits Gucci personifies through its brand positioning and high-profile celebrity consumers, traits which directly connect with this image-led audience group.

Aside from Forever 21, the other notable performer across all respondents to the genre was Nike. While Nike’s level of popularity varied based on the different responses to questions about the brand’s role in life, it was consistent that Nike has a broad base of relevance with the audience in relation to fashion and image.

These findings reflect Nike’s long-standing focus of marketing to the cultural genres that influence this audience’s tastes in sportswear and street style, but also indicates that the brand could do more to increase the level of fashion-oriented engagement in order to defend the brand’s positioning as a leading tastemaker from mass ubiquity, where it could lose its edge in culture.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Fashion 81%

85%

The Technology Brand Leaders in Fashion Culture We examined each of our four Role in Life questions in relation to the seven technology brands we tested.

Into Fashion

55%

57% 57%

40%

19%

29%

38%

34%

43%

46%

52%

66%

Less into Fashion

1. Useful in My Daily Life

Google was singularly the most popular brand within the genre when it comes to usefulness, as we would likely expect to be the case.

In fact over 80 percent of the respondents considered Google to be most useful, whereas less than 40 percent consider Twitter to be useful. However, even though Google’s popularity was highest, the level of stated relevance actually decreased with people more into fashion versus less into it—so the more fashion-interested segment saw Google as less relevant to their day-to-day fashion interests than those less into the genre.

Meanwhile, Twitter’s numbers were lower in overall popularity, but its relevance score was significantly higher. This was because while the overall number

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of people claiming Twitter was useful in their dayto-day lives was lowest, the difference in usefulness between those into fashion versus those less into it was the greatest.

This indicates that the role of Twitter holds a high level of relevance and usefulness as a channel for interests for fashion’s loyal followers.

Like Twitter, eBay holds a relatively strong position in terms of relevance to those into fashion, given its role as a retail channel. Even so, the actual overall level of popularity was lower than might be expected.

This tends to suggest that eBay is failing to really cut through with fashion followers in a way that connects their actual interests with the brand.

Both Microsoft and Amazon proved to be average

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

performers in every sense, which confirms what we may expect, given a lack of a real role in the fashion space.

Conversely, Apple’s relevance demonstrated a more potent draw to the brand, which perhaps is more reflective of the iconic design credibility the brand holds and the caché held as a fashion item in its own right. Certainly this is something Microsoft could strengthen if it wishes to gain ground among fashion/ style-conscious consumers.

Finally Facebook was the runner-up to Google in overall popularity, and while the relevance draw based on consumer engagement wasn’t significant, the opportunity for Facebook to curate a user’s

experience for fashion provides a stronger platform for the brand to continue to grow both its popularity and tap into relevance with people into fashion and fashion brands. While we only measured these mass brands, it would be fairly safe to presume the biggest rivals to their popularity in daily usefulness would be the fashion-specific portals and apps serving fashion content. PinterestSM, GiltSM, Asos and other interest sites and retailers naturally rely on Facebook as a channel for marketing, but equally Facebook and Google could lose out to these channels as consumers build behaviors around the interest points themselves, and no longer have a need for the middle man.

2. Reflects My Personal Values

25%

44%

51%

46% 38% 20%

40% 37%

33%

49%

55%

61%

65%

72%

The technology brands’ roles in reflecting personal values follow a similar pattern to use in daily life—both in terms of popularity ratings and also levels of relevance based on engagement.

The key difference we found was that Google’s score shifted to show a marginal positive relevance score, indicating that people more into fashion perceive the brand as more relevant in reflecting their personal values related to fashion.

In pure relevance terms, Twitter again showed the highest level of difference between those into fashion versus those less into it. This further reinforced the brand’s role as a go-to reference for fashion followers, and shows the brand’s solid role in reflecting the interests and personal image of fashion’s community members.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Fashion Into Fashion

3. Reflects How I Want Others to See Me

Within the Role in Life questions, associating a brand in relation to how you want to be seen by others is perhaps the hardest area in which to gain good data. This is because consumers simply don’t often think (or want to think) about their motivations to impress others.

Although this is true, what we do know from previous studies of 18-24 year-olds is they are more comfortable with their public identities and more consciously aware of how their actions and choices shape opinion of them. Likewise, they are more conscious of what brand choices mean to them in a social context. Peer groups are more vocal and clear on their approval rating of brands, so the incidence of dependable data increases the validity of findings, at least within this group.

38

26%

41%

50%

64% 41%

22%

38%

44%

54%

57% 42%

39%

55%

65%

Less into Fashion

In the study, we found that overall popularity of brands dipped in comparison to the other Life-Role responses, no doubt a symptom of the effect mentioned above.

That said, we found that the relevance of Twitter really spiked in this capacity—even disproportionately to its social media companion Facebook. This certainly demonstrates Twitter’s high level of Cultural Capital in fashion as a device to express not only your fashion interests, but also to broadcast how you want to be seen in the world.

For this reason, it is perhaps the most effective medium for social popularity and public expression within the fashion genre.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

4. Relates to My Personal Interests

56%

28%

44%

31%

42%

36%

45%

41%

57%

57% 59%

65%

69%

74%

The most interesting insight in relation to how brands relate to someone’s personal fashion interests is the jump in popularity and relevance for Facebook in this role.

While it still sits behind Google in overall popularity, its relevance is stronger.

Google’s high popularity could most likely be attributed to its ubiquity in this instance. Facebook’s performance is more likely a result of its ability to easily connect its users through fan pages of the fashion brands and interests they’re seeking.

“18-24 year-olds are more comfortable with their public identities and more consciously aware of how their actions and choices shape opinion of them.”

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Fashion Cultural Capital Index The Cultural Capital score of a brand measures its relevance against its competitors and shows the score as an index, where 100 is the neutral relevance.

80

28

Popularity | 53%

Popularity | 71%

100

39 Popularity | 41%

Our results showed that Twitter was a clear winner in the fashion genre. Its role in the lives of those into fashion dramatically differentiates it from those less into fashion. It holds down the top spot not only because it connects peoples’ interests to relevant communities in their cultural life, but also due to its accessible social platform. It is also highly reflective of fashion-interested users’ personal and social values.

It helps fast-track users to the values they crave most, including Appearance, Public Image and Social Status.

Twitter’s potential has perhaps been overlooked given its relatively small audience in comparison to Facebook. However, its ability to build a relevant role in people's interests shows it has the ability to build stronger communities by offering a more meaningful role in interests.

Apple’s high ranking in the number two spot is most certainly a result of the inherent style caché and image of the brand, which has helped it gain relevance among fashion followers. Through products like the

40

iPhone and iPad, it has become the most culturally relevant manufacturer without a doubt, and the brand’s innovations both for product design and content strategy have ensured it is completely in tune with both image-based aspiration and day-to-day functional use.

Google’s low “Twitter: Highly reflective performance of fashion-interested users' is no reflection personal and social values.” of the brand’s awareness or engagement level, but it does indicate it has no increased value in the lives of young fashion followers.

With the growth of fashion sites like Pinterest, Gilt, Polyvore or even eBay, and the continuing growth of app-based browsing, Google needs to defend its role beyond utility function to feature a real role in the lives of those seeking out their fashion interests.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

121 Popularity | 35%

119 Popularity | 59%

163 Popularity | 32%

150 Popularity | 45%

Fashion Culture Summary

There is a clear story that plays out within the fashion genre relating to technology brands. First, the overall popularity of across all roles does not equate to active cultural relevance.

Google’s strength is its ubiquity: It is the universal go-to reference for finding what you want. Therefore, it is certainly an important gateway to any interest, not exclusively to fashion. But as a brand, it does not have any meaning in the fashion space.

While this may seem irrelevant for Google’s brand strategy, it is something to consider for new product innovations. Products like Google TV, Google Play or Android are platforms in a different competitive category setting, where cultural relevance is a determining factor for the choices consumers make to buy one solution versus another, heavily based on their personal values. In this context, Google may lose out to its competitors like Apple that have invested in building much higher relevance through their style and image-led positioning.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Music The Role of Values in Music

Along with fashion, music has long been one of the most archetypal definers of youth and young adult pop culture. They have been mutually inclusive cultural allies helping to shape and inform mainstream and sub-cultural identities, often at a generational level.

Innovations in digital platforms have opened access to music beyond ownership, which in turn have broadened and blurred musical tastes borrowing from any and every influence from the past. At the same time, the fusion and experimentation of musical genres has given rise to "mash up" and "remix" culture, where traditional genres are mutated, remixed and reproduced into new sub-genres.

Even though tastes have continually broadened, there are still clear genre mainstreams and popular artists, which represent and reflect the ideals of their listening audiences.

Music also remains perhaps the single most popular platform for the social experiences of young adults—whether it be live performances, clubs and DJs, or just background ambience for social spaces.

For this reason, it was not surprising to find that the most relevant value highlighted by respondents into music was a Social Status. In fact, it was seen as twice as important on average than those less into music, correlating the importance of music with the level of social popularity.

The other value—or rather attribute—drawing the greatest relevance with people into music was found to be Wealth.

Wealth may at first appear to be an unusual trait to increase in importance the more someone is into music, but it is important to consider the audience in question.

With the young, L.A./New York audience surveyed, Wealth is a critical measure of success, and regularly personified with many of the popular urban music artists who influence their aspirations and self-perception.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Key Insights

The importance of Wealth and Social Status with those into music is a clear signifier of the role perceived success plays in gaining cultural relevance with this audience base.

It seems fair to assume the values driving people who are into music may vary by demographic, audience lifestyle cohort, and other factors. However, when reviewing this group, it was a clear indication that brands reflecting social success and affluence would perform well.

“People who engage more heavily with music see their Social Status as more front-of-mind, in the same way those into fashion held greater importance for Public Image and Social Status.�

Perceptions

In reviewing psychographic statements from those less into music, versus those more into it, we found that a social theme carried through.

Sixty-three percent of those less into music said they have "fewer, closer relationships," whereas more than half those into music claimed to have "a large social network."

While it would certainly be a stretch to infer that those people less into music do not enjoy the social popularity of their musically connected friends, what this does support is a belief that people who engage more heavily with music see their Social Status as more front-of-mind, in the same way those into fashion held greater importance for Public Image and Social Status.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Music’s Most Popular Brands: Into Music iTunes Apple Sony® YouTube PandoraSM

Less into Music Apple iTunes Rock Amazon Sony/iPod

Within the research methodology, respondents were asked to rank their most popular unprompted brands in the given genre.

What we found from both respondents into and less into music was that Apple and its iTunes brand hold the dominant role in life for music.

But even at the top, the brand preference shifts depending on how into music you are.

For those into music, iTunes was in the top position across all roles in life, whereas for those less into music, it was Apple at number one in all cases except for "Useful in daily life," where iTunes clinched it.

The ranking of brands for those into music extended consistently across all roles, with Sony always lagging well behind iTunes and Apple in third place.

YouTube performed closely with Sony’s level of preference and attained fourth place, but in every instance Sony and YouTube’s combined preference rankings did not even match Apple’s second-place scores.

While Apple and iTunes success differed based on audience engagement, the actual percentage variance in each case was relatively close, which suggests the role of iTunes becomes marginally more relevant with people more into music, but both brand names carry immense equity.

Maybe the most interesting finding among unprompted brand ratings is that respondents actively see iTunes and Apple as unique and different. They did not pick one or the other but rather listed both as most relevant to them.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Music 75%

Into Music

63%

Less into Music

1. Useful in My Daily Life

46

43% 32% 32%

41%

In terms of usefulness in daily life, Apple was in fact a strong second place contender in terms of popularity and also demonstrated a small increase in the level of relevance with people into music.

Google claimed the number one result for popularity, and yet in the same pattern as seen with the fashion genre, the usefulness in daily life was actually less relevant with those into music compared to those less into music.

Twitter returned a popularity rating that was relatively low, but a high relevance—a performance consistent with its score in fashion.

24%

29%

42%

53% 50%

60%

72%

81%

The Tech Leaders in Music Culture Given that Apple was so successful in listings within the unprompted brands of the music genre, it provided an excellent point of reference to follow if that relevance carried through to Cultural Capital measurement among the brand’s tech competitive category.

eBay was the lowest performer in terms of popularity and showed a zero difference in relevance, indicating it showed no differentiation based on music engagement.

Microsoft showed comparable levels of relevance to Apple, although its popularity of use was at a similar level to Twitter’s.

Facebook, which ranked in third place in popularity, actually recorded the highest level of relevance, demonstrating a strong role in daily life for people into music.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

2. Reflects My Personal Values

61%

63%

70%

30%

36%

42%

41%

40% 29%

33%

44%

55%

55%

67%

Facebook showed the highest relevance in relation to personal values, followed by Amazon and then Twitter.

Overall popularity of role was scored highest by Google and then Apple, with Facebook in third place.

Twitter showed the lowest level of popularity from respondents, but maintained its consistently strong relevance.

It is relatively unsurprising that the social media channels would show positive relevance in reflecting personal values relating to music, and while the lower popularity of Twitter is appropriate to the penetration of users in comparison to Facebook, it can still be considered in close ranking to its larger peer in terms of relevance draw.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Music Into Music

3. Reflects How I Want Others to See Me

Both Google and Facebook recorded the highest levels of popularity in relation to this value, but Facebook showed almost double the nearest competitor in level of relevance between those into versus those less into music.

Apple and Amazon were the runners up in terms of overall popularity, but Apple’s brand proved far more relevant.

Twitter, Microsoft and eBay all followed in near-equal third place in popularity.

But while this was the case with popularity, Twitter showed a massive difference in positive relevance for those into music. This is clear proof that music users in Twitter’s community see the role of the brand as massively relevant in how they want others to see them.

48

26%

41%

50%

64% 41%

22%

38%

44%

54%

57% 42%

39%

55%

65%

Less into Music

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

4. Relates to My Personal Interests

49% 39% 35%

33%

43%

37%

44%

45%

56%

62%

66%

70%

51%

67%

Overall, we found the relevance of brands relating to personal interests compared more closely.

Facebook was the only exception, where the level of relevance spiked significantly and there was a high popularity score.

Google maintained its high usage role in popularity ranking, but showed less relevance difference.

Most interesting was the drop in relevance level seen in Twitter in comparison to the relevance levels seen in the other roles. Clearly, users see Twitter as important and relevant as a channel, but its limited content generation perhaps correlates with less relevance as a platform to engage with music content.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Music Cultural Capital Index The Cultural Capital score of a brand measures its relevance against its competitors and shows the score as an index, where 100 is the neutral relevance.

40 Popularity | 68%

66 Popularity | 49%

92 Popularity | 58%

100

60

90

Popularity | 34%

Popularity | 39%

Social status was highly important to those into music and their self-perceptions reconfirmed this.

This is why we see the highest Cultural Capital Index score is achieved by Facebook with Twitter in second place.

The ability to socialize music culture is the driving force and clearly something brands like Google, Amazon and eBay are failing to capture.

To increase relevance, developing strategies that provide consumers with the ability to interact and share their music preferences and experiences through the brands will no doubt allow them to increase this relevance.

Finding platforms that integrate a brand within the social aspects of music interests “Brands act more like entertainment will likely pay the greatest dividends for channels and can build a genuine role brands. The real value in relevance terms as the facilitator of the conversation.� can be achieved by first harnessing the voice of the artists through the brand and then curating the conversation of the fans. By investing in this behavior, brands act more like entertainment channels and can build a genuine role as the facilitator of the conversation.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

228 Popularity | 55%

124 Popularity | 35%

Music Culture Summary

Perhaps the biggest narrative to the role of tech brands in music culture relates to the social effect.

While Apple and iTunes were listed as the most popular brands, with respondents replying to unprompted consideration, as soon as the competitive set was considered and the different roles of the brands were examined, this story changed dramatically.

Clearly there is a brand caché to Apple that drives its preference and certainly findings may have shifted if we had measured iTunes in place of the parent brand.

However, the cultural relevance of Twitter and Facebook in relation to music interests is indisputable.

Regardless of popularity levels, Facebook proved itself almost twice as relevant as Twitter with people into music.

Undoubtedly this is a result of the content and sharing combination Facebook provides, in comparison to Twitter’s more limited content engagement role.

By gaining access to fan pages, keeping up with news, and easy audio and video sharing, Facebook has grown its role as the go-to reference in music.

Likewise innovations like Spotify®’s music integration will also contribute to Facebook’s integration in music culture, enabling users to share what they are listening to with friends.

The social effect is underpinned by our findings relating to the importance and scale of social networks with music fans.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

“From a psychographic standpoint, when looking at media we observe a shift in social self-confidence between those into media, versus those less into it.”

Media The Role of Media in Culture

In contrast to fashion and music, while media maintains an omnipresent role in our lives it is not an interest that we seek out. By contrast, it is the channel or delivery device by which we connect with our interests.

With the growth of social media, we have seen a reverse in the flow of news, whereby the social channels now readily inform the mainstream media channels.

For brands, the presence within the complex earned-media landscape is vital for awareness and relevance. Within the technology category, this landscape increases in complexity as brand and channel blur and intersect. When understanding the role of media for young adults, clearly the importance of media comes “With the growth of social media we have seen a reverse in the flow of news, whereby with a social suffix, allowing for an active role in the conversation the social channels now readily inform the as well as being the passive recipient of information.

mainstream media channels.”

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

Key Insights

The media genre seems to be measured by the value of information and the confidence to share opinions.

In understanding the self-perceptions of those measuring as more or less engaged in media, we see that media, regardless of specific channel, is about sharing information and is related to the confidence of those individuals sharing their opinions.

If you were to ask a room of people a question, you would naturally find that some people would be more opinionated and vocal than others. In the same way, we see the effect of social self-confidence relates to the level of engagement with media in culture.

"like things to be tried and tested before they adopt them," and 65 percent stated they "look to others to find out what’s hot or cool."

Contrasting with this group, those signifying they were into media had already stated they believe in their own judgments and seek to share and evangelize their preferences. Eighty-five percent of them stated, "If I find a new product or service, I tend to tell everyone I know," and more than half of them stated, "People look to me to find out what’s hot or cool."

Perceptions

“Respondents who measured as less into media tended to be more reluctant to form, follow or share their own opinions.”

From a psychographic standpoint, when looking at media we observe a shift in social self-confidence between those into media, versus those less into it.

In simplest terms, the respondents who measured as less into media tended to be more reluctant to form, follow or share their own opinions and more likely to seek the influence of others in gauging their opinions. Sixty-nine percent of this group stated they

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Media’s Most Popular Brands: Into Media Facebook Twitter Apple Yahoo!® Google

Less into Media Facebook Google Apple News Twitter

When asking people to self-select brands that relate to roles in their life for media, you might assume that respondents would list networks like MTV, ESPN, ABC, HBO, etc. In fact, only FoxSM received any significant mention by respondents who listed the network as reflective of their personal values, but still only by 4 percent of those into media.

Social media dominated respondents’ perception of media. To this end, Facebook proved its universal leadership of the overall group, as the most popular brand by both those into the genre and less into it, and across all life roles.

Twitter was second in the rankings and as with Facebook, performed equally well with those less into media as those into it. This demonstrates there is less of a core distinction between brand preferences in relation to media engagement, even though we have seen there is a difference in self-perception between groups.

Google appeared in results relating to usefulness in daily life, as did Yahoo!

Apple was also listed as a popular brand in relation to media, which is perhaps a reflection of the brand’s devices and apps used to source media content, rather than the function of the product. It was mentioned with equal levels of popularity by those into and less into the genre.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Media

The Tech Leaders in Media Culture Given the universal appeal of Facebook and Twitter across both into and less into respondents in the unprompted brands section, we were interested to see if a level of relevance would exist in our measured brands, and show any difference between the engagement levels between the groups.

92%

Into Media

63%

28%

34%

42%

45%

57% 58%

62% 49%

51%

57%

79%

85%

Less into Media

1. Useful in My Daily Life

Predictably, Google returned the highest sense of popularity as a useful source for media in daily life, but remained undifferentiated in terms of relevance by engagement.

Facebook proved second most popular among respondents and returned an average positive relevance, drawing more appeal with those into media.

However Facebook’s relevance score was in no way an indication of significance, given that it measured within a point of Apple, Twitter and Microsoft.

Amazon was the least differentiated, showing almost a neutral shift between people into media versus less into it.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

2. Reflects My Personal Values

60%

69%

40% 29%

33%

41%

48%

54%

58% 43%

41%

58%

74%

81%

Google related well with this role, but showed relatively low difference in relevance.

Apple proved to be highly differentiating within this role. The brand proved of equal popularity with Microsoft in terms of levels of response, but was more than one-third more relevant than Microsoft when considering the difference between those engaged in the media genre and those less engaged.

We found that eBay had the most differentiation in terms of relevance: respondents into media considered the brand far more important to their personal values within media than those less interested in media overall. However, eBay was also the brand with the least overall popularity, demonstrating that high relevance also needs to be considered within the context of the overall role consumers believe a brand holds in any given cultural genre.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Media Into Media

58%

3. Reflects How I Want Others to See Me

Our measured brands returned some of the lowest overall scores when considering this socially related question for the media genre.

This can be attributed to a lower cachÊ and aspiration associated with being interested in media. As a genre it simply doesn’t hold the same level of social status as fashion or music interests.

Within this role, Facebook proved most popular and also showed the greatest difference in relevance between those into the genre versus those less into it.

As with personal values, eBay showed the lowest level of popularity, but recorded the highest percentage differentiation by relevance.

58

38% 34%

41%

49%

33%

44%

55% 43%

43%

56%

66%

73%

73%

Less into Media

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

4. Relates to My Personal Interests

39% 35%

49%

43% 33%

37%

44%

45%

56%

62%

66%

70%

51%

67%

In contrast with the previous role question, respondents stated a high level of overall popularity when considering the role of brands in relation to their personal media interests.

Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon were all considered to be extremely popular. Apple proved to be the most relevant, reflecting the brand’s popularity within unprompted brand consideration.

Facebook and Twitter were considered equally relevant, although the proportion of difference was heightened for Facebook given the brand’s popularity standing.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Media Cultural Capital Index The Cultural Capital score of a brand measures its relevance against its competitors and shows the score as an index, where 100 is the neutral relevance.

90

57

Popularity | 65%

Popularity | 51%

100

72 Popularity | 75%

92 Popularity | 49%

Overall media genre Index scores represent less relevance when compared to fashion or music genres. This is perhaps an indication of the lower overall level of importance of the genre to respondents than it is a reflection of brand performance.

Equally, the overall difference in relevance between brands is lower and more closely grouped, which shows that none of the brands are dramatically differentiated in the genre.

Clearly Apple’s cachÊ creates enough of a differentiating factor to identify the relevance for the brand within the genre, but it is perhaps an indication of the group showing relatively low/neutral relevance with the majority of brands, that no technology brands studied are seen as drawing relevance between those into media versus those less into it.

It could be considered whether the results would dramatically change if the brands in question were all media channels or TV shows—where the interest would be driven by content relevance in relation to the genre and would be greatly reflective of individual choice.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

138

102

Popularity | 53%

Popularity | 36%

110 Popularity | 38%

Media Culture Summary

When considering brand relevance in the media genre, two characteristics really stood out: First, respondents considered product-led brands such as Apple as important as social media channels.

Second, relevance needs to be considered in relation to scale of popularity. While eBay recorded stronger relevance differentiation with people into media, its scores were consistently low in overall popularity.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

“Technology is not about technology, it's about social currency.�

Technology The Role of Values in Technology

We found that the value attributes listed by respondents who were into the technology genre were a close reflection of those associated with music and fashion genres. The attributes showing most distinct relevance were Appearance, Social Status, Public Image and Wealth.

While these attributes are certainly popular and important with the young adults surveyed, it is interesting that they peak in importance when considering genres such as technology as reflective of these values. This indicates genres that are in sync with their values are always more important.

That said, the most popular attribute across both those into and less into technology was Creativity. Clearly the link with technology as a means to be creative and express views and ideas with others is fundamental to interest in the genre.

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The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

“People into technology display self-assurance in their decision-making behaviors, opposing their less into counterparts who favor following trusted conventions.”

Key Insights

Technology is not about technology; it's about social currency.

The role of the technology genre is seen as a means to an end to demonstrate social popularity.

Creativity and Self Expression have long been considered the core social currency of young adults, and technology is seen as the platform by which to communicate these values to others.

Our responses show that the more into the genre the respondents, the greater the increase in these values, which fuels the importance technology plays in their life.

Perceptions

We can correlate the level of self-confidence in respondents with the level of engagement with their preferred genre. Respondents into music and media genres showed distinctions in their most relevant psychographic statements, which demonstrated increased self-esteem between those into the genre versus those less into it.

In a similar vein, people into technology display self-assurance in their decision-making behaviors,

while their less into counterparts who favor following trusted conventions. They also display greater spontaneity, risk and social leadership.

Into Technology: • "I tend to make spontaneous purchases, even on major items." — Over 1 in 3 • "I always try new products and services before others do." — 49% • "I have a large social network." — 2 in 3 • "People look to me to find out what’s hot or cool." — 53% • "Advertising can be a great way to find out about products and services." — 79%

Less Into Technology: • "I look to others to find out what’s hot or cool." — 64% • "I like things to be tried and tested before I buy them." — 3 in 4 • "I find all advertising annoying." — 1 in 3 • "I spend quite a lot of time researching products before making a major purchase." — 86%

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Technology’s Most Popular Brands: Into Technology Apple Sony Microsoft HPŽ Google

Less into Technology Apple Sony Microsoft SamsungÂŽ Google

Reviewing the most popular unprompted responses for technology brands, within a study focusing on technology brands, provided the opportunity to effectively blind test the relevance respondents consider without framing our category.

We were then able to correlate the findings here versus the prompted brand questions to better understand how young adults perceive brands in isolation versus comparatively.

We found that respondents universally cited Apple as the most popular brand in the technology genre regardless of engagement status.

What we also found consistently across all four life-role questions was that Apple grew in relevance based on level of engagement with the genre.

In relation to "Useful in my daily life," Apple was seen as useful by 51 percent of respondents into technology versus 39 percent of those less into it.

Microsoft scored the second most popular against this question, but reversed with engagement, so 18 percent of those less into technology referenced the brand in comparison with 15 percent of those into the genre. Microsoft showed diminishing relevance with cultural engagement.

64

Sony was a close third to Microsoft, with Samsung trailing Sony by a percentage point. Each of these competitors followed the same trend as Microsoft: falling in relevance against engagement and losing out on percentage points that Apple gained.

This was a clear pattern throughout the subsequent life-role questions.

Apple claimed no less than 40 percent of those into the genre in each instance, and in every case rose at least 10 percentage points from the less into respondents.

Sony and Microsoft battled for second and third place, though there was very little difference between them and they continually performed at around onethird the level of percentage points of Apple.

HP had a low ranking with those into technology, and wasn't recognized at all by those less into the genre.

The only non-manufacturing brand to feature was Google, which ironically appeared in low results across all questions except for "Useful in my daily life." It should also be noted that Google did not reflect any increase in preference in relation to relevance.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Technology 85% 86%

The Tech Leaders in Technology Culture Given the clear narrative takeaway seen in the unprompted brands section, we were most interested to see if the same results would appear within our measured brands.

Into Technology

63% 57%

20%

27%

48%

46%

60%

66%

68%

44%

46%

71%

Less into Technology

1. Useful in My Daily Life

Popularity levels were high across most brands for this life role. Google proved most popular with about 80 percent of respondents rating the brand as useful. While this is a fairly obvious and predictable association, as with other genres we found that Google’s relevance fell with engagement level.

Apple held a small margin of popularity against Microsoft with those into technology, but the proportional difference in relevance was huge. There was little in Microsoft’s draw of relevance, while Apple returned the highest degree of difference in relevance measured in the whole study.

66

Twitter also showed an extreme spike in relevance from those into technology versus those less into it, but consistent with previous findings, the overall numbers were relatively low in popularity. eBay performed similarly to Twitter, with strong relevance draw, but lower popularity, suggesting the retail brand is seen as important with those young adults into technology, but hardly features with those less engaged with it.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

2. Reflects My Personal Values

54%

27%

46%

43%

56% 24%

43%

44%

62%

63%

64%

69%

76% 76%

Many of the points above were reflected in relation to this question, but the most significant difference was Microsoft.

Microsoft recorded the lowest level of relevance (or most negative) in the entire survey.

Those less into technology were happy to reference the brand as reflective of their personal values, but those into technology actively shunned the brand. Meanwhile Apple showed a strong positive relevance in common with its role in daily life.

Twitter and eBay again scored consistently, showing a relevance for technologyengaged respondents.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Technology Into Technology

3. Reflects How I Want Others to See Me Again, Apple showed strong relevance with those engaged versus Microsoft’s low relevance.

Given the social nature of the question, Facebook increased in popularity of consideration and also showed a strong degree of relevance with those most engaged.

68

46%

43%

46% 26%

30%

46%

41%

57%

58%

59%

68%

76% 72%

67%

Less into Technology

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

4. Relates to My Personal Interests

59%

31%

52%

47%

63% 30%

47%

46%

64%

65%

69%

72%

81% 77%

Personal interest responses followed the same pattern as previous questions, with Apple recording levels of relevance massively different between those into versus less into technology.

Twitter showed high relevance, as did eBay, although typically we found their overall popularity levels were relatively low by comparison to the other brands.

Facebook proved popular, as did Microsoft, but both showed little change in terms of relevance.

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Cultural Capital // Volume 01

Technology Cultural Capital Index The Cultural Capital score of a brand measures its relevance against its competitors and shows the score as an index, where 100 is the neutral relevance.

87

10 Popularity | 63%

Popularity | 60%

100

14 Popularity | 79%

98 Popularity | 52%

Apple has successfully optimized the brand’s role in portraying those most desirable values within its marketing and provides a powerful draw with those viewing technology as important to them culturally.

It also best reflects the psychographic habits and attitudes portrayed with those most engaged.

Perhaps the most telling story within this genre is the polarizing effect seen between Apple’s relevance and Microsoft’s lack thereof. Given that in most cases the levels of popularity in responses were comparable between the two brands, it is a true reflection that Apple’s level of influence upon those most likely to evangelize their brand is their strongest cultural asset.

Given that engaged consumers in this genre will likely have a heavy influence in purchasing behavior over those less engaged, relevance is certainly a critical component for success in purchasing behavior.

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In the case of Twitter, the high relevance in relation to those engaged with technology is a positive attribute for the brand, showing a strong role within a community that is important for a communitiesbased platform. The same cannot be said for eBay, where low popularity with high relevance indicates eBay is struggling to broaden appeal beyond the core engaged audience, and therefore losing out on potential volume, likely as a result of lack of purchasing confidence. Simply put, consumers less into technology just don’t see eBay as a relevant brand for them to choose.

The Cultural Capital of Technology Brands // Chapter 2

150 Popularity | 38%

190 Popularity | 57%

151 Popularity | 38%

Technology Culture Summary

Apple proved to be the most popular unprompted brand, and it proved to be the most relevant brand to technology consumers within the study.

What we also found is that relevance is not popularity, but ability to engage. While we found that Twitter and eBay showed strong relevance in each instance, it was still with relatively low levels of overall popularity.

In these instances the brands proved to hold strong appeal based on engagement, but give the sense that they are less popular than their competitors.

To measure the full impact of the brands it is important to look at the values driving the scores and not only the scores themselves.

“Relevance is not popularity, but ability to engage.�

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Culture’s Most Relevant Technology Brands Who Has What it Takes to Win In reviewing the findings of this test study, we have the "Tech War" in Culture? identified the specific areas of performance for the

brands included.

This Cultural Capital Index Summary is a good snapshot of the overall relevance standing of these brands, but as we have observed, the data tell the deeper story.

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Culture’s Most Relevant Technology Brands // Chapter 3

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Popularity | 51%

Popularity | 73%

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57 Popularity | 48%

“Apple has effectively done everything right in its journey to cultural dominance.�

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Culture’s Most Relevant Technology Brands // Chapter 3

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131 Popularity | 60%

108 Popularity | 38%

Popularity | 53%

137 Popularity | 35%

The Most Cultural Capital—Apple

Apple has effectively done everything right in its journey to cultural dominance, and in specific reference to the young adults living in cosmopolitan cities whom we surveyed, the brand is perfectly attuned to their sensibilities.

Within the fashion genre, Apple’s aesthetic-driven premium product design ensures the brand reflects the important image-led values that drive relevance among engaged, fashion-centric consumers.

While the total score for music is down versus Facebook, “Data tells the Apple was cited along with deeper story.” iTunes as consistently the most popular unprompted brand. This popularity carried over into the branded questions and although relevance dipped, its performance was solid.

Within media, Apple succeeded in generating a draw in relevance that outstripped the perceptions of the social media giants of Twitter and Facebook.

Technology showed Apple’s greatest distinction, proving the brand’s outright authority and influence over its competitive set.

Apple’s smart strategy to maintain premium products and build out properties that position the brand at the heart of consumer interests has established its products as perhaps the most ubiquitous range of aspirational cultural products in the world today.

Yet, while it is clearly the most successful in cultural terms, it also has the most to lose.

Perhaps the biggest threat to Apple is Google.

While Google recorded the lowest Cultural Capital Score overall, its score masks a story of untapped potential waiting to become relevance. In most cases, Google recorded exceptionally high popularity and usage when considering the brand’s role in life. In fact its popularity is its downfall in terms of relevance, as it fails to create an active draw through cultural relevance.

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Most Relevant Brand Within a Cultural Genre—Facebook for Music

Facebook was popular across many of the measured cultural genres. Indeed, it was rated as the most frontof-mind and popular brand within the media genre.

Within the music genre, respondents cited iTunes and Apple as the brands most front-of-mind, but when it came to considering brands within our competitive set, Facebook proved its worth, achieving the highest relevance score in the “Twitter is highly appealing entire study.

When relating for those more actively involved in culture.” values to the music genre, we were able to see the importance of Social Status with those engaged in music. Facebook’s ability to curate music content and drive the conversation with its broad user base means it can most directly capture the role music performs with those heavily engaged.

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Most Active—Twitter

Twitter’s relevance score placed the brand as the runner-up to Apple overall.

It’s worth noting that in nearly every genre and life role, Twitter recorded low popularity scores, which is a fair reflection of the overall penetration the brand has with “Facebook's ability to curate music the young adult content and drive the conversation with population. its broad user base means it can most What is evident, directly capture the role music performs however, is that with those heavily engaged.”

Twitter is highly appealing for those more actively involved in culture. It is highly effective in helping those engaging within a cultural genre stay connected.

It is also highly representative of the values of young adults. Its public social platform allows engaged users to manage their cultural interests as a form of social currency, and they trade it on Twitter.

Culture’s Most Relevant Technology Brands // Chapter 3

Most to Improve—Microsoft, Amazon and eBay

Microsoft was considered the second least relevant brand studied and performed very poorly in comparison to Apple in virtually every metric.

In many ways Microsoft’s strength is its universal distribution, and its low relevance may be a reflection of low active brand choice. It has simply become the background service provider, powering the branded PCs and devices consumers choose.

Universalism could be a risky strategy for the brand, though.

Becoming “Universalism could be a a utility for technology risky strategy for the brand.” leaves the brand open to competition both from the premium end of competition (such as Apple) and also with lower price-point competitors (such as Google’s Android).

Microsoft’s low relevance with young adults surveyed for this study represents a lack of focus to appeal to the cultural interests of the audience.

Overlooking this valuable audience seems odd given Microsoft’s success with Xbox, but if the brand fails to connect with young adults, Microsoft

could find they become a brand of the previous generation with no relevant equity in culture today.

Amazon and eBay would appear to tell a similar story of utility: They are just there as and when consumers need them. When there is a specific audience/cultural need-state, their relevance increases. When there is no need that relates to the services of the brand, they drop out of interest.

In many respects, “When there is a specific cultural their middle need, state relevance increases.” ranking in relevance terms reflects a degree of ambivalence toward the brands and suggests both companies should place greater effort into increasing the day-to-day role with young adults. Given that both brands represent content and products associated with many of the most popular young adult cultural interests, it should be relatively easy to translate presence within culture into increased relevance with the audience.

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4 Cultural Capital // Volume 01

The Power of Cultural Capital A Robust Approach to In studying cultural relevance using the Performing in Culture. Cultural Capital methodology, for the first

any culture, and measure that popularity by examining the attitudinal and behavioral role of that brand in their life. Understanding time we have been able to show how the these preferences allows us to capture level of engagement with an audience’s the behaviors and values represented by cultural interests can be used to directly these brands and apply them to any other measure the relevance of a brand. brand wishing to gain success within a We have been able to identify an audience by qualifying their social values genre or audience segment.

We have been and perceptions, able to measure which enables us to “We are able to ascertain the brands that qualify the are most popular and front-of-mind within the competitive motivations driving any culture, and measure that popularity.� landscape of brands broadly them to choose their cultural interests, and better understand within the technology category, in order to better understand how they are perceived how these traits apply to brand preference within the measured genres and how within culture. strong their relevance score is based on We are able to segment our audience engagement/popularity difference. based on their level of engagement and We are now able to combine the findings influence within culture to help determine to provide an overall cohesive picture the dynamics in play that show the depth of the relevance of brands in culture. of relevance any brand has, based on Moreover, we have thorough, data-driven how its preference shifts between levels diagnostic tools at our disposal to of engagement. measure, optimize and change the We are able to ascertain the brands that performance of a brand in culture. are most popular and front-of-mind within

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The Power of Cultural Capital // Chapter 4

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Five Ways to Increase Your Brand’s Cultural Capital 80

Five Ways to Increase Your Brand’s Cultural Capital // Chapter 5

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1. Build Your Brand Idea on Culture

Brands that understand culture understand how to interpret their product role into the cultural role for their consumers. This effectively enables the functional benefit of a product to transform into the emotional benefit of the brand.

A good example of this would be Red Bull®’s idea of "Vitalizes Body and Mind." By translating this clear role of the product into the cultural context, Red Bull is able to ensure this role means many different things to different audiences within cultural genres spanning extreme sports, urban music or high fashion.

2. Focus on Your Consumer’s Cultural Values

Values drive engagement with the cultural genres.

People self-select their interests based on their values. Likewise, by learning about the values that matter to those people engaging in cultural genres, we can recommend which values to convey in communications messaging within any genre.

Given the widely accessible data on consumer values, it is possible to understand how to promote those values within cultural interests.

3. Focus on Cultural Influencer Strategies

Understand the differences and connective tissue with heavily engaged consumers of culture versus the mainstream in order to find the tipping points.

Many brands understand the importance of investing in early adopters, but fail to translate their advocacy into mainstream appeal because they do not shift the tone in communications messaging to reflect the different values and perceptions of the less engaged audience.

By understanding and identifying which elements of a cultural interest attract different audiences based on different engagement levels, it is possible to translate cultural engagement into mass appeal.

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4. Focus on the Cultural Role in Your Consumer’s Life

As the findings of this study illustrate, saying a brand is popular in music culture does not explain why it is popular.

By understanding the role (or roles) a brand plays in culture, it allows you to focus communications to help consumers identify more readily with why they would choose your brand.

5. Focus on Building Engagement

Relevance is individualized—the greater something reflects your personal interests and values, the more relevance plays a role.

Most brand marketers will say they do focus on building brand engagement. But that’s the problem: The engagement does not come from focusing on the brand. Engagement comes from focusing on the role of the brand in culture.

By concentrating efforts on increasing the “Relevance is individual—the role of the brand in greater something reflects your a cultural genre, the personal interests and values, brand will become the more relevance plays a role.” respected for its contribution. And the more the brand is respected, the more loyalty it will generate—and loyalty promotes advocacy to broader audiences connected through those cultural interests.

“Focus communications to help consumers identify more readily with why they would choose your brand.”

Five Ways to Increase Your Brand’s Cultural Capital // Chapter 5

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About the Author

Clyde McKendrick Clyde is Executive Strategy Director with integrated advertising agency WDCW, based in Los Angeles.

He is also founder of the Cultural Capital Insight & Innovation Lab, a division of WDCW dedicated to analyzing the changing influences in culture and providing strategic consultancy for culture-led strategies.

Originally from the U.K., Clyde founded his own lifestyle brand consultancy, advising the cultural strategies for brands including Red Bull, Coca-Cola®, Stella Artois®, Levi’s, T-Mobile®, Bombay Sapphire® and Diesel®, before moving to the U.S. to lead brand strategy for Pepsi ® with TBWA\Chiat\Day. Clyde is a contributing writer for business and cultural media, including Fast Company, Mashable and Ad Age. He also founded MILK Magazine, a periodical journal reporting on changing culture and creativity.

For information about Cultural Capital contact Clyde McKendrick. clyde.mckendrick@wdcw.com @clydemckendrick www.culturalcapital.tv

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