Marketing Briefing: How the desire for cultural relevance is changing marketers’ planning cycles

By Kristina Monllos • March 4, 2025 •

Ivy Liu

This Marketing Briefing covers the latest in marketing for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →

If you ask today’s marketers what’s important to them, you’ll hear a common refrain: They want their brands to truly be part of culture. But what does that actually mean and how are marketers going about making that happen?

There’s a necessary recalibration of control and planning. Culture is ever changing, ephemeral and impossible to predict — and yet, today’s marketers are more beholden to the cultural zeitgeist than ever, intent on finding ways for their brands to be part of whatever the obsession of the moment may be and capitalizing on that. To be part of the cultural zeitgeist requires marketers to change not only how they show up and what they say, but also how they spend their ad dollars.

“We’re continuing to lean into key calendar moments, but more and more brands are recognizing there is value in reserving budget and resources to be purely opportunistic,” Laura Brockway, svp and planning director at EP+Co, said in an email. “Consumers increasingly expect brands to be a part of relevant cultural conversations as they unfold.”

Rather than locking up the quarter’s or year’s ad budget early on, with 100% of that budget dedicated to firm commitments, marketers are making sure there’s room to activate around cultural moments that are the right fit for their brand. (The size of that room varies by marketer, according to agency executives.)

“As much as due diligence and consistency is still necessary, it’s increasingly understood that no one can predict what might happen in culture (or when) that could open an interesting opportunity for a brand,” said Brockway. “If every dollar is already spoken for ahead of time, a brand limits its future.”

It’s not just about budget commitments, but also a mindset shift among marketers to loosen control of their brands a bit for when the cultural moment is right. “We’re trying to be innovative,” Perdue svp of marketing, David Zucker, said of the company’s push to be part of culture. “We’re trying to figure out how we can punch bigger than our weight, make our dollars go further and be more creative. We’re going to fail sometimes, which we’re ok with, but when we hit it right … we’re hoping to strike lightning.”

Aside from mindset and budget shifts, marketers have to understand whether or not a cultural moment — whether fleeting or cyclical — is worthy of a brand’s resources and effort. “There’s a sharper focus on where a brand can be the most relevant,” Nick Miaritis, chief client officer at VaynerMedia, said, adding that some marketers are recognizing the value of shifting from an “always on” mindset to an “always relevant” mindset.

“We tend to think about things from a pure financial perspective but I also think the currency of attention is equally important nowadays,” said Brian Reid, director of organizational strategy and culture at Mother, adding that brands must have more intent behind their decisions even with the added pressure to show up in culture. “It’s not just a matter of financial capital that you’re spending. It’s also the capital you have with your audience as well.”

To do so requires marketers to rethink how their brands operate and, ultimately, be more flexible and versatile. “In the past, marketers executed brand plans in a very structured way, with rigid editorial calendars and predictable campaign rollouts,” Nicky Bell, president of Americas at brand consultancy Landor, said in an email. “This rigidity extended to branding overall, with strict brand guidelines, fixed messaging, and a top-down approach. Consistency was valued above all else.”

Bell continued: “However, given the fundamental changes in how consumers engage with brands across today’s fragmented media landscape and the constant influx of information, this approach is proving less effective for marketers who want to keep their brands relevant and connect authentically. To navigate this, we are guiding our clients to embrace versatility, not rigidity.”

That need for flexibility isn’t just to be part of the cultural zeitgeist, but it’s also necessary to navigate the uncertain economic climate. There’s a hesitation in the market, according to agency execs, due to inflation, consumer sentiment and the potential for tariffs to upend marketers’ ad spending.

“Fewer, bigger or better is the modus operandi of the marketing world,” said Miaritis. “There’s a lot of worry about the state of the economy, consumer [sentiment], politics, and most marketing organizations are focused on a few things they can do really big and execute well.”

3 Questions with Jessica Padula, vp of marketing at Nespresso

This year, Nespresso is aiming to marry its retail footprint with experiential marketing. What’s the strategy there?

We’re really investing in that evolution of our retail strategy, not just with a new store but also in thinking about what happens in the store, that it’s not just a transactional try a sample, buy the coffee, go home. We really do feel like making a meaningful footprint of our boutiques in key cities with a very differentiated experience that makes it a destination for shoppers can help us grow and help us differentiate ourselves.

How do you make the case for that in the C-suite, especially when everyone wants performance and immediate return on investment?

Like most people, our experiential budget was wiped out during Covid, for good reason. Then it gets repurposed. To the point around brand and performance, it gets really hard to go back to your CFO and convince him why I need to invest in this and what I’m going to get out of it. I definitely still have those internal conversations of, ‘What is the role of experiential? How are you validating this?’ We want to invest more in [that now] and experiential retail is a natural place for us to do that.

Hard pivot here, but coffee prices are rising. Tariff plans are up in the air. What does that mean for a company like Nespresso?

I don’t think anyone knows exactly how it’s going to land, so we’re monitoring it. Obviously, we’re looking closely at what it entails.

The other impact of the industry we’re in right now is green coffee [unroasted coffee bean] prices are just through the roof. They’re outrageous. Even before you get into the world of tariffs and whatnot, we go back to the core values of our brand. The sustainability aspects of how we source our coffee are critical to our business success.

To me, it doesn’t change our marketing efforts as much as it does allow us to double down on the things that already exist within our value chain and our supply chain to say, where are those stores that resonate more or help justify, if at some point there are, price increases. — Kimeko McCoy

By the numbers

At this point, it’s clear the way people search for things is changing. (Find a closer look at the fragmented search landscape here.) On one hand, people are increasingly turning toward social media platforms, namely TikTok, to begin their search for products and product reviews. On the other hand, users are searching with generative AI platforms, like ChatGPT and Perplexity. With all that said, Google is no longer the only search engine in town. In fact, 55% of Americans say the way they search for information online has changed over the past five years, according to recent research from adMarketplace, a native search advertising company. Find key details from the report below.

Nearly half of consumers (44%) discover new products or brands through online ads and one-third (33%) discover new products through search engines — representing an opportunity for brands to use open web channels to capture the attention of additional consumers.
41% of consumers rely on relevant results to find new products or brands when they search, with this trend projected to continue.
20% of consumers said greater use of AI-driven search engines and 17% said increased use of augmented reality features to virtually try products. — Kimeko McCoy

Quote of the week

“The typical holdco story of having buying power, market clout and the best people is becoming increasingly fragmented and therefore harder for them to use to convince marketers they’re the best businesses to work with.”

— said Eric Perko, founder of Apollo Partners, a full-service independent media agency and consulting firm, when asked about the state of the ad business and if the holdco era is over.