Dr. Anastasia Karklina Gabriel, cultural theorist, writer, social critic, and strategist and the author of Cultural Intelligence for Marketers, joins AMA's Bennie F. Johnson to talk about cultural intelligence and the responsibility of marketers.
Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel, cultural theorist, writer, social critic, and strategist and the author of Cultural Intelligence for Marketers, joins AMA's Bennie F. Johnson to talk about cultural intelligence and the responsibility of marketers.
Bennie F Johnson
Hello, and thank you for joining us for this episode of AMA's Marketing And. I'm your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at an intersection of the unexpected and marketing. Through our conversations, we'll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.
Through our thought provoking conversations, we'll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, our guest is a cultural theorist, writer, social critic, and strategist who focuses on inclusivity in marketing, media, and tech. Our guest today is none other than Dr. Anastasia Gabriel. She currently serves as the Insight Lead at Reddit and earned her doctorate in cultural studies from Duke University. She's worked with and consulted some of the world's leading brands, including Nike, Samsung, Disney, Alta Beauty, and Amex, to name a few. Her agency work has spanned Widener Kennedy and Macan. Among others, she is an author of the forthcoming Cultural Intelligence for Marketing, a lifelong and committed activist. Dr. Gabrielle helps brands ignite cultural innovation and leverage the power of media for good. Her insights have been featured not only with us at the American Marketing Association, but with Advertising Week, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and most fun and importantly, Teen Vogue. So today we are delighted to welcome Dr. Gabrielle to our podcast today. Thank you for joining us.
Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel
Thank you for having me, Bennie. It's a joy and a privilege to be here today.
Bennie
It's so much fun to have a conversation today that's looking at our culture, which we've seen in a way. I think we're all more aware and more present in the changes and twists that are happening and in the culture in which we live in. Talk to me a little bit about what first captured your attention in terms of this body of research and looking at you know, cultural studies and marketing. What first brought you to this?
Anastasia
My origin story in the field of marketing starts at the desk of my home office in Durham, North Carolina when I was finishing my doctorate. I was a fifth year PhD student studying culture, really passionate about popular culture, media, advertising, what was really happening in the world of mass media and entertainment.
Bennie
Yes. Okay.
Anastasia
Fully funded fellowship to begin my dissertation research and realizing, oh gosh, I do not want to do this for the rest of my life. Just sitting at a desk and studying culture in retrospect, so in hindsight. And I started looking for ways to be more immersed in culture and to bring my knowledge to areas of work that...
Bennie
Right.
Anastasia
Really have to do with culture as it's happening. And so I stumbled into marketing and advertising around 2019. And in 2020, as you might remember, so many brands started paying attention to culture, to issues of identity, to questions of belonging and empowerment. And in that moment, it was just such a revelation for me where I felt very strongly that the
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Right.
Anastasia
Disciplines of cultural studies of critical race and gender studies, which is what I specialize in, have so much to offer to brands and businesses that are trying to be more culturally relevant, but also be more inclusive. And so that's really how the book and the body of work that I'm engaged in now came to be through this realization that there's so much unexplored knowledge outside of business that I wholeheartedly believe.
Bennie
Mm-hmm.
Anastasia
Can make such a huge difference within the corporate world. And so that's how the book was born.
Bennie
Oh, wow. It's really a great space. I mean, for our conversations here, we're always looking at marketing and this additional space. When we think about the brands that you talked about before, there's so much in which we are both influencing culture and being influenced by culture. What have you seen in kind of the recent space of brands successfully navigating that being in and of helping to shape, yet be shaped by culture?
Anastasia
The very best examples that I'm paying attention to and really thinking about are the ones where I see brands really spend time understanding their role, not only within their category and within the customer's journey, but within the broader culture and society. I have been following brands like Hinge, for example, that is working on a recent
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Yeah
Anastasia
Culturally driven campaign to tackle the loneliness epidemic among Gen Z. And the way that this brand, for example, understands their role in fostering connection outside of, say, romantic dating. And so I've been really paying attention to brands that are taking time to understand what is the deeper human need. That the brand speaks to that is really relevant to their customers and how that fits into the broader cultural conversation. So that's where my mind is at these days is really thinking about the role of brands in category and how that intersects with what's evolving in the cultural dialogue.
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Right. And when we think about these cultural dialogues, often when people think about culture, it's what's new and novel and young, but really, culture expands all of our kind of consumer experiences. As you've looked at brands, where do we see some of the opportunities or the pitfalls in trying to take your brand and really kind of lean into the cultural moment?
Anastasia
I won't surprise listeners, perhaps, that I'll say the pitfalls really lie within the area that I guess I would describe as performative, inclusive marketing, right? Where brands are really grasping at straws just to stay relevant without really understanding what cultural ideas are capturing the attention of their customers.
Bennie
Right. Right.
Anastasia
But also what evolving attitudes in culture are really driving that conversation. And again, to my point earlier, how it intersects with the specific role that the brand plays within the category. And so that's something that I'm thinking a lot about these days. It seems like as an industry, we are engaged in this conversation of what's the future of purpose? What is the future of social responsibility in marketing?
And there is a understandable disillusionment with performative marketing, purpose for purposes sake, but where the most opportunity that I see in the future is really is in that question of what's next, what's next for brands that do, do want to do well in business, but also want to do good in the world and what it means to be a genuinely inclusive and culturally intelligent brands that really gets the customers, but also its role in society more broadly outside of just the work of social impact and purpose.
Bennie
Right. And I think it's important to kind of note, and we love your opinion on it, that how do we separate this kind of movement from being a culturally focused advertising campaign? And as we know, advertising campaigns come and go versus a culturally important and relevant way of business, which is more deep than that. And we've seen in a marketplace now that brands who kind of stepped up in these moments that it was nothing but a mere campaign when you look at how their business did not evolve or the campaigns have changed today. Love to hear your thoughts on that kind of tension.
Anastasia
That's such a critical tension to tease out, I think, precisely because these days I'm leaning more to the language of conscious marketing, which I feel like in my estimation shifts our focus away from just specific campaigns and specific outputs to a set of professional skills that marketers will need.
Bennie
Mm-hmm.
Anastasia
In this cultural moment, but also certainly in the future as culture evolves, in order to infuse that kind of attention to cultural relevance, to issues of inclusivity and belonging in marketing, to issues of cultural fluency throughout the marketing function. And so I feel very passionate about thinking about cultural fluency, not just as a creative output that goes to market, but as a way of thinking a kind of ethos that elevates, that advances, that levels up the responsibilities that we have as marketers across various processes, whether that's creative ideation and campaign strategy or market and consumer research. To me, that feels really, really pivotal to the moment we're in and how to succeed going forward.
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's an interesting prompt that once we as marketers internalize this and impact the work that we have, what advice do you have for marketers to then take this understanding and this approach and champion it with the other executives in the organization, right? Where it's like, this is a change that's happening in marketing and how we show up in this part of the brand. But as we know, brands are not more than just the marketing campaign. How can marketers champion this viewpoint? And approach in their executive conversations.
Anastasia
I always go back to research. I'm a researcher by training. And I think it's just so important to understand what customers, consumers expect from businesses. And that's certainly not just a marketing campaign that feels and sounds good. We are dealing with unprecedented levels of big brand skepticism, of distrust within.
Bennie
Yeah. Right.
Anastasia
Consumer segments in relations to organizations and businesses, to the point of where I believe in a recent HAVAS report that I've read, 77% of consumers did not believe that brand-new and businesses are transparent in their DI commitments across the board. So if we are to correct that perception and build trust with customers, the work that
Bennie
Mmm. Right.
Anastasia
We do within marketing has to be expanded to other functions of the business, whether that's the broader corporate social responsibility, supply chain ethics, employee relations and workplace dynamics and so on, to further a business that is holistically inclusive, that is holistically culturally relevant, et cetera.
Bennie
Mm-hmm.
Anastasia
Goes back to what do customers expect and how business can serve customers better across executive functions beyond marketing per se.
Bennie
So we've talked about brands and this incredible power. I want to go back to thinking about culture at large. The impact that brands can have on the way we show up in life, that's an incredible power to have. What do you think about the responsibilities that marketers and brands have in terms of shaping the cultural context?
Anastasia
That will probably be one of my favorite questions you ask me today. I feel so deeply that as marketers, there is this unexplored responsibility, but also unexplored potential and opportunity. If we could only tap into a thorough, full understanding of the weight that brands hold in what I would call cultural imagination.
At the end of the day, I don't buy Nike shoes because I know something specific about the construction of the shoe and what it does for my athletic performance. I'm buying Nike and wearing it because it makes me feel something, because it makes me feel like I can do more, just do it. And if we think about brands through that perspective...through that lens, we can really start to appreciate the power that brands have in shaping perceptions. So, that's a good example of a brand that makes me feel empowered, that makes me feel like I want to reach for more. We also have examples through the history of marketing and advertising where so many consumers looked at brands and didn't see themselves reflected in the marketing that they're consuming.
Bennie
Right. Right?
Anastasia
And so beyond conversations about corporate social responsibility and purpose-driven marketing, et cetera, there seems to be this core responsibility that all marketers have just by virtue of producing mass media that ends up shaping perceptions, attitudes, and has this dual function of both reflecting culture, reflecting the collective common sense of what's normal, what's expected, who is considered desirable, who is considered beautiful, who belongs, who doesn't belong, et cetera, and reproducing it. And so we have so much responsibility to do our work well, but also so much power in shaping where culture goes and who we elevate and who we represent and feature in the work that we put out there.
Bennie
Right. And, you know, it's interesting as we kind of deal with brands, these contemporary moments and rebuilding on it. You talked about kind of Nike just do it, which is kind of paying in deposits over time and how that continues to expand. And, and you think about what that inspiration means, what happens when legacy collides with the contemporary where your brand has had kind of a legacy, a legacy stance, but we, as a people, a culture,
Anastasia
Mm-hmm.
Bennie
As individual consumers change? How do brands deal with that tension and that collision?
Anastasia
In my view, that's where the role of cultural intelligence come in. And that's what I'm dedicating a lot of my time thinking and writing about. You know, legacy brands are drawing on codes, cultural codes that are enduring, that are speaking to these deep human needs that we have as human beings. But culture is also fast evolving and culture is moving forward.
So in order to preserve that relevance, in order to continue to be able to speak to customers in a way that legacy does not get equated with being outdated or the thing of the old, we have to find new cultural codes that emerge to stand for this, for that same thing, for those values. And
Bennie
Right. Mm-hmm.
Anastasia
We see that with a lot of brands that did not keep up and did not really go along with the culture and then face backlash on how to change their logos and their mascots and how to scramble to keep up. And there are other brands that are really keeping their finger on the pulse of culture, on analyzing where culture is headed and how people are expressing themselves and then using these cultural codes.
Bennie
Right. Right. Right.
Anastasia
And integrating them into their work. And to me, that's where brands not only survive, but truly thrive in culture. And some of those examples, I think, are truly inspiring.
Bennie
I would love, you know, we talked about those examples that are inspiring. I'm curious as to what's surprising you these days. Where are brands that are showing a distinct amount of creativity or resilience in ways that kind of catch you off guard?
Anastasia
Well, I usually talk about inclusive marketing. That's where my heart is. And it's easy to talk about, you know, the Patagonias of the world, the Ben and Jerrys, those easy examples that everyone knows. I love example of Billy, which I talk about in the book. It's the direct-to-consumer shaving brand.
Bennie
Right. Right. Okay. Mm-hmm. Right.
Anastasia
And they came to market and really disrupted the category in a way that was relevant to cultural conversation and exactly directly relevant to their product. They were the first brand a few years ago to show women with real body hair. And
Bennie
Mm-mm.
Anastasia
Saying this in 2024 almost seems a little bit ridiculous. We had advertising for so long where we were seeing women shaving, already shaven legs. And they really came in and understood where female consumers were in terms of their mindset, what was missing and where culture was going and created the product.
Bennie
Right.
Anastasia
That really reflected a more authentic reality. But what I really love about that example is how currently this brand is evolving. They started with their category by producing, advertising that really spoke to their target audience and really disrupted category in a way that put the cultural dialogue around authentic women's representation to the forefront. And now they've expanded beyond that. Just last year,
Bennie
Right.
Anastasia
Not that long ago, they put out a game, an actual card game, that speaks to women's broader experiences of double standards or explaining ourselves, of overthinking. And now we see this brand evolve and speak to other adjacent social and cultural issues that are not directly related to shaving. So that's one of the examples that really excites me.
I find it to be one of these best in class examples of how brand can start with their own category, truly understand their role within it, earn that trust, and then over the years expand into driving the cultural conversation in the broader sense that is no longer defined just by the product or the category.
Bennie
Right? I mean, it's a credible, powerful example. And kind of, I'm just going to pull and quote for a second their mission, kind of what we're all about is how they describe it. Our mission is to champion the whole spectrum of womanhood. We want to undo the unfair social pressure women face, starting with double standards around shaving and body care and celebrate the infinite ways women can look, feel, and be in the world. Their mission statement opens them up for, this is where we started. This is our vision for how we're going. And it's infinite. I think it's really, really powerful of a way to show up as a, as a challenge or brand as well.
Anastasia
And it's a recipe for success. They didn't try to just be relevant for the sake of it or get into the headlines. It's really rooted in a deep understanding of their customers' lived experience. And I actually experienced that very recently when I was in New York and I was grabbing a Lyft and I opened my app.
Bennie
Right.
Anastasia
And I see an invitation to opt in to Lyft's new program called Women Plus, which when possible matches writers who are women or non-binary people with drivers who are women or non-binary people. And even though there are structural issues at play because there are not as many female drivers out there.
Bennie
Okay.
Anastasia
And I did not get to be matched by one, that was another instance where I, as a customer, felt really seen in my lived experience as a woman who has had to her entire life think about my safety and experience discomfort in certain situations when I did not feel particularly safe. And so that was another example that I feel is related to the example of Billy that we're talking about.
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Right.
Anastasia
Really understands the customer's experience in regard and in the context of broader cultural and social conversations that we are having around the experiences of women and other people marginalized by gender in the world as they're moving outside of their purchase journey.
Bennie
Well, I want to give a chance to kind of highlight some of the work that's in the book as well. When you think about cultural intelligence, what are some of the quick frameworks or hits that you would share with marketers that they should think about for cultural intelligence for marketers?
Anastasia
Just to my earlier point, I feel very passionate about the centrality that I think what I call social consciousness should have across the marketing function and across a variety of processes that go into building an inclusive marketing strategy. For that reason, the framework as I defined it has four pillars, which I call the four Cs of cultural intelligence. That's culture, understanding.
Bennie
Mm-hmm. Right.
Anastasia
Brands' role in culture and understanding how brands function as symbols to our earlier conversation that hold deeper meaning for consumers and in broader culture and society. I focus on the second C, which is communications. So that is how are messages being received by audiences and how marketers can use, and I weave in Stuart Hall's reception theory.
To think about anticipating interpretations that consumers might have in order to prevent unintended mistake, cultural insensitivities, bias in marketing campaigns that we put in front of customers. And then I focus on critical consciousness, which really is about infusing marketing with principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion to say that it's not just a matter.
Bennie
Okay. Mm-hmm.
Anastasia
Of one purpose-driven campaign, but a matter of applying this lens to any work that we do in order to ensure that the media we produce is responsible and representative of all. And lastly, community. We hear a lot of skepticism, as I mentioned before, around the way that brands signal their commitments. And what I think we're seeing is the rise of co-creation.
Bennie
Okay.
Anastasia
Brands really elevate their community and customer engagement by bringing customers into the process. So that's 4C's, cultural communication, consciousness, and community. And that's the framework within which I work.
Bennie
Excellent. And I mean, really focused and valid points as we kind of think as marketers, what our contemporary challenges are and what the opportunities are. You know, we talked about community and bringing your audience, your customers into community with your brand. And in many cases, the community exists, whether the brand recognizes it or not, right? And it's kind of a, we're bringing the community there, but community is growing up around you in the space.
I want to pivot a little bit because I'm going back to your origin story. It's so interesting that you were exploring, you know, as a scholar and a researcher, these notions of culture and theory and found the kind of entry point to really amplify it and apply through marketing. I'm curious, as you think about your social commentary and the writing that you do, where do you find inspiration today?
What kind of invites you in to explore?
Anastasia
My inspiration, which is not going to be surprising to people who know me, is the history of movements, of social movements, of people coming together to enact change. Because as I was writing this book and as I was thinking about bringing the concepts that I think are just really meaningful and useful for what we do day-to-day as marketers, I ended up going to this rabbit hole of research.
Bennie
Mm-hmm.
Anastasia
On the history of inclusive advertising within the marketing industry. I got to talk to Dr. Harold Krasarjian, who is a professor emeritus at UCLA Anderson School of Business, who was one of the first marketing scholars and researchers to write about
Bennie
Okay.
Anastasia
Black representation in advertising in 1969. And that is what really fuels me creatively, intellectually, this understanding that we are not having a new conversation. We are not creating things from scratch. Part of what we do today has been made possible by other researchers and marketers.
Bennie
Hmm.
Anastasia
Who have been having this conversation, not for four years, not for 10 years, not even for 15 years, but for over 50 years. And it was just honestly the honor of my career to be able to speak to Dr. Kasarjian on the phone. And the interview is printed at the end of the introduction to the book to really realize the legacy that we are carrying forward. And-
Bennie
Right.
Anastasia
The kind of platform that we have now to amplify the ideas that people before us explored at a time when it was least popular, least acceptable, and they still did it. And so that really what fuels me and moves me forward is understanding that history, I think a lot about Foucault's concept of history of the present. How did we get here and how can we use? The wisdom of those who have come before us to propel us into better futures ahead.
Bennie
Nice. Now, I'll ask this question. We've asked about surprises in the marketplace and inspiration. What would our audience be surprised to know about you?
Anastasia
Well, I don't know if that is surprising per se, but based on what I just said, I suppose, I have been an activist all my life. And so I've stumbled into marketing as somebody who never imagined myself being in the corporate world. If you told me, you know, 10 years ago that I would be sitting here with you today, I would.
Bennie
Uh-huh.
Anastasia
Laugh hysterically in your face. I have spent most of my career in the academy, but also at the forefront of grassroots movements, fighting for racial and social justice, labor justice, immigrant justice, and so on. And so a lot of what I actually think makes me a good marketer has actually nothing to do with marketing and business. And it is just the experience of being in struggle with ordinary people and seeing brands how ordinary people see brands. And in complete transparency and honesty, for the longest time as a young person, I was one of those people calling to boycott and criticize brands and pressure brands into being more inclusive. And now I'm on the other side.
Bennie
Right.
Anastasia
Understanding the challenges and the perspectives of marketing and brand leaders who are trying to do better and trying to find the tools to do so. And so that dual perspective, I consider my superpower in the work that I do, but I often find that where I've been and what I've done in terms of my activism does always fit into the world of business. But I guess that is one thing that makes me a little bit different as a marketer.
Bennie
Well, I think it's really intriguing. And I wanted to ask the question that way, because just in our conversations, looking at the things that you're interested in, what you're reading and what you're consuming, at the same time, it's really this great creative tension and it's reflection of all those ideas. Kind of the full circle of how do we as humans build relationships and meaning and space and basically just other words for how do we create culture?
Anastasia
Yeah, I relate to that a lot. And part of what I think about is, how do we break out of some of the labels and boxes and binaries that we've been stuck in for so long that are clearly not working and are needing a healthy dose of cultural and creative innovation. And for so long, we've really assumed that business and ethics exist kind of on opposite sides of society, that business is there to really drive profits and activists are there to pressure the business to do better. And I'm really interested in breaking up that binary and asking, well, who taught us that and who said that we ought to do marketing without consideration for ethics or how it impacts real people and real issues in cultural society.
Anastasia
Probably the right way that I would describe it. How do we break through these boxes that we've been placed in and really engage new ideas that shake things up and at least provide inspiration for something new and something different, which I feel like is what makes this industry special in the first place.
Bennie
So I'm going to ask, I can't believe we're at the end of our time, but I'm going to ask one question that's a phrase that fits equally in the history and actions of movement and in the understanding of marketing. So I'm going to ask you, what call to action would you give to our audience?
The call to action, which is a part of our activism roots, but is at the heart a part of our marketing space. What would you challenge our group to?
Anastasia
Mm-hmm. I have to pause to think about it because, mm.
Me jamming it in real time. I would want to say that as marketing professionals, understandably, we're so focused on the future. We are anticipating the next trend. We're anticipating changes in the market. Where is the next opportunity that we need to jump on? What I think is sometimes missing in our industry is precisely what I mentioned. Understanding... the history of the present, of how we got here, and what kind of forces have shaped not only under our industry, but the lived experiences of the customers that we serve, diverse customers in a increasingly multicultural and diverse world. And so there's always this focus on the future, which I certainly share, but I have to wonder whether as an industry, we also have to look back in order precisely to be more effective in what we do in the present and how we prepare for the future. And that's to me is the core of cultural intelligence, is the need for us to expand our frame of reference and consume different kinds of knowledge, different kinds of research, exposure to different kinds of experience.
lived experiences so that we can better understand the brand's role and culture and how to harness that knowledge to make better business decisions. That's what comes up for me and what feels relevant in the work that I'm doing now.
Thank you so much for having me.