Over 53,000 people seem to like my writing about human culture and technology on Medium. You can read my articles here: medium.com/@gilescrouch

If you’re marketing is going to jump in on a social media trend, make sure to know the unwritten rules of your audience or things can go wonky fast.

When brands focus on performance marketing, they get so focused on individuals that they forget it’s culture, the one they play in, that drives longer term brand value.

Marketers are good at leveraging the culture we see, but the value sits in the culture you can’t. Unless you dig deeper.

So if AI can solve all these fancy math problems, why can’t it fix the cereal bags in boxes? Been horrid to open since the 1970s.

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The idea of a universal income is better seen as a form of feudalist largesse by the robot owners.

Numerals are often thought to have been invented by Arabia but they were actually created in India. It was India that created the concept of zero. Which made modern mathematics work.

The Canadian flag will fly at half-mast on federal buildings across Canada. All Canadians stand with the service members at CFB Wainwright, their families, and their community.

Such an awesome trail run today. Nova Scotia is exceptional at this time of year. A symphony of colours.

Your Marketing Is Too Professional, That’s the Problem Great creative, recognizable brands, and the case for humor in B2B. vibeyoursaas.beehiiv.com/p/y…

I see so many brands utterly misreading the culture that they play in, and missing so much revenue opportunities. It’s not that hard to do some research.

Jaguar is an example of a brand that ignored its cultural heritage & thoroughly missed the mark. They could’ve been a powerhouse of an EV brand.

This is a great metaphor for what @janthonylong describes as the zombiefication of brands…

"We may be entering an era in which the abundance of intelligence actually tells us less and less about the health of human thinking. And that leaves us with a curious possibility of an intellectual wasteland filled with brilliant answers." The Intellectual Dust Bowl psychologytoday.com/us/blog/…

The culture we grew up in and live in is the first influence on what we will buy. Culture is where the buying journey begins.

Jeep asked Clotaire Rapaille what a Jeep was. He didn't run a survey. He asked people about the first one they remembered, then kept asking until the stories stopped being about cars. The answer was HORSE. So the headlights went back to round, because horses have round eyes. The doors came off. The windshield folded down so the wind hit your face. The leather went in because saddles are leather. The line was: you don't need the road, you make the road. None of that is on a spec sheet. In 2008, with the rest of the industry shrinking, Wrangler sales grew 17 percent. Every category has a word like that underneath it. Coffee in America is FUEL. Health is MOVEMENT. The word was put there before the customer could talk, and it's still deciding what they buy. Find it before you write the ad. Otherwise you're arguing with a horse.

Every market runs on unwritten rules, but few brands truly invest in knowing them. Those that do, gain real brand value.

It’s relatively easy for brands to get into cultural rituals, but much harder when it comes to norms and practices. When they do, that’s gold.

Brands that invest in understanding the culture within which they play, have higher returns on their strategies & campaigns.