The Magic of Cultural Hitmaking With Ana Andjelic

“There is nothing but micro trends these days. Sometimes, things bubble up, and they capture the imagination of pop culture…but then they last for a really short time. In that environment, how do you really set yourself up to influence culture?” 

In this week’s episode, Ana Andjelic graces our show with breakthrough advice from her latest book, Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture. Discover the secrets of updating heritage brands, keys to transporting customers into imaginative worlds, and how to amplify microtrends to position your brand within cornerstone cultural narratives.  

Architects of the Identity Economy

Key takeaways:

• Reverse-Engineering Hits: The concept of "hit-making" is about creating micro-trends and amplifying them through culture to align with the zeitgeist and resonate with a brand’s audience.
• Capturing Connection: Modern brands are focusing on attention and engagement as measures of success, recognizing that loyalty stems from deeper interactions beyond purchases.
• Brands as Cultural Contributors: Successful brands become part of a larger cultural narrative, contributing to concepts like happiness (Coca-Cola) or creativity (Apple).
• [00:6:34] - “As human beings, we never make decisions in isolation. We are always influenced by what we read, see, listen to, and each other. So in a sense, all of those interactions are narratives or they're fibers of the narrative.” - Ana
• [00:29:27] - “You have to be both sensitive to the zeitgeist and cultures, but also stay true to that innovativeness of those brands because all those founders did create something that didn't exist before.” - Ana
• [00:31:01] - “There's actually a transforming, so taking one form and putting it into a new context, which is how myth begins. It's actually at the moment of transformation.” - Brian
• [00:35:00] - “There is time and place for everything. Performance marketing works really well with brand marketing, but demand is created by brand marketing. Demand is harvested by performance marketing.” - Ana

Associated Links:

• Buy Hitmakers on Amazon
• Subcribe to Ana’s Substack for access to the Hitmakers podcast and more
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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