Cultural Resonance & Gallagher
“Cultural Resonance is achieved when your audience uses what you've created to talk to each other about something meaningful that they've been observing in their culture.”
The thing about cultural resonance is that our culture is constantly in flux, constantly changing. So for us to remain meaningful, we must change right along with it. Seems simple enough, but this is in direct competition with the single, simple brand message.
With your basic 360 degree mass marketing model, the goal is consistency, to be “on brand” or “on message.” You do this so you define the culture, but are not defined by it. Not often is the goal to simply stay meaningful. Irrelevance is one of those sad realizations that companies come to about 2 years too late. And that’s the good ones. This shift doesn’t sneak up on you overnight.
So we need to be more malleable in our messages and more eager to evolve. Frankly, people who are the same forever at some point just stop being interesting. The Gallagher watermelon bit was hilarious with the first smash. And probably the hundredth. But after decades of comfort in his one great bit, Gallagher confused a flash of resonance with sustainable interestingness.
I wish I could remember who said it, but the fundamental corollary is this - are you creating stuff people want or making people want the stuff you create? Are you reflecting the culture that surrounds you or only imposing your vision upon it? The survival companies, those well prepared for this economic reset are those defined by their audience in the products they create, the services they offer and their attitude towards the culture they share.