Instead of Chasing Trends, Marketers Must Enhance Culture and Communities

Contribution > brand kinship > cultural relevance

Show up in culture. Move at the speed of culture. Join the conversation. For the last decade, we’ve been chasing the same ambition: cultural relevance. Today, culture has never been more crowded with brands trying to gain attention, especially as consumers get increasingly savvy at skipping advertising. But brands can be as easily forgotten as they’re noticed.

Cultural relevance is essential. It drives consideration, preference, brand love, growth. The question isn’t whether relevance matters, it’s how it’s earned.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing being near culture with being meaningful to it. True cultural relevance isn’t earned through proximity. It’s earned through contribution.

We’ve misunderstood what culture actually is. When marketers talk about culture, we often mean trends—cultural calendars, celebrities, creators, events, viral moments, memes, the latest social debate. But culture isn’t the content. It’s the people creating it. Culture is made up of communities, connected by shared passions, identities, rituals, ambitions and values. Artists, runners, surfers, gamers, food lovers, fans, creative ecosystems, neighborhoods, cities. The trends are simply the visible expression of those communities.

That changes the strategic question entirely. Instead of asking: “How do we show up in culture?” We should ask: “How do we contribute to the community?” “What are they missing?” “What do they want to achieve, and how can we empower them?” Because if those communities genuinely value what you’ve created, a meaningful relationship establishes itself. And culture follows. And relevance grows.

The strongest brands increasingly follow this model: Contribution > Brand Kinship > Cultural Relevance

• Contribution creates value.
• Value earns trust and love.
• Trust and love create belonging.
• And belonging is what ultimately earns cultural relevance.

Brand kinship isn’t another marketing metric. It’s a different ambition altogether. The goal isn’t simply to be recognized. Or even passively loved. It’s to become an active part of people’s worlds. To be essential to them achieving their ambitions. To earn a place so relevant that people would miss brands if they disappeared. That’s kinship.

How to achieve this? Through meaningful actions, true added value and positive participation.

Contribution doesn’t necessarily mean purpose marketing or philanthropy. It simply means creating something that leaves a community better off because your brand exists.

Sometimes that’s entertainment. Sometimes it’s visibility. Or utility. Opportunity. Education. Sometimes it’s creating a stage for someone else instead of yourself. The format changes with each community. But the principle doesn’t. People should receive meaningful value before the brand receives attention.

One question has become our filter for almost every cultural platform we create. If this disappeared tomorrow, who besides the brand would miss it? Would creators lose a platform? Would communities lose visibility? Travelers a resource? Fans something they genuinely enjoyed? If the answer is no… You probably only created marketing.

Over six years of working with Delta, we’ve seen this formula lead to successful outcomes: Contribution > Brand Kinship > Cultural Relevance.

Rather than starting with a campaign brief, we started with what travelers were missing. Delta’s “Faces of Travel” filled a representation gap, creating 10,000+ free images and videos that helped more people see themselves in travel—and lifted brand love by 10 points. “Delta Locals” filled a discovery gap, giving creators and community voices the microphone and helping travelers experience destinations through the people who know them best. And “Delta Overhead Originals” turned a partnership with YouTube into a first-of-its-kind music platform, transforming airline cabins into intimate stages for artists.

Different audiences, different ideas, same principle: instead of trying to insert Delta into culture, we created ways for the brand to contribute and earned greater relevance in return.

The future belongs to contributing brands. The ones that listen to communities, collaborate with them and create something of genuine value in return. Because the ultimate goal isn’t simply to show up in culture, but to earn a place within it.

That’s Brand Kinship. And when you truly belong, cultural relevance isn’t something you have to chase. It’s something people choose to give you.

Related: Why Some Brands Just Show Up in Culture, While Others Belong There