0:00

Author Dr Marcus Collins tells

0:02

us culture is the most powerful force

0:04

shaping human behavior , and we were

0:07

fortunate to have Marcus join us hot

0:09

on the heels of his keynote at InVentures

0:11

May 2024 . The following

0:13

is an interview we had a chance to do with him . He's

0:16

a professor at the University of Michigan and former

0:18

ad executive . In our talk he

0:21

shares some insights from his best-selling

0:23

book For the Culture . So

0:37

sit back , settle in Welcome

0:40

to Shift

0:47

. Marcus , thank you very much for joining

0:49

us today . Your keynote had some great insights

0:51

into how culture impacts us all . One

0:54

of the things you mentioned that I found particularly compelling

0:56

was your comment that artifacts are an outward

0:58

manifestation of an inward belief . Can

1:01

I get you to expand on that a little bit ?

1:03

Sure . The idea is that , because

1:05

of who we are , we see the world a certain way . Because

1:07

of the way we see the world , we therefore navigate

1:09

the world accordingly . We have a shared way of life , the

1:11

artifacts that are normal for people like us , the

1:14

behaviors that are expected of

1:16

people like us in the language that we use and

1:18

we adopt these artifacts not because of what they are . We adopt these behaviors

1:20

not because of what they are . We adopt these

1:22

behaviors not because of what they are . We use these language

1:24

not because of what they are , but what's expected of people

1:27

like us , that

1:33

is , you know , the clothes that we wear become outward expressions that we are a part

1:35

of this community . The way that we talk , our lexicon , our dialect , our slang , our

1:37

colloquialisms , they're all byproducts

1:39

of our subscription

1:42

into this community . We do the things that we

1:44

do and our behaviors as

1:46

a way to signify our cultural subscription

1:48

. So the things that we adopt

1:51

, they are arbitrary , right , they don't

1:53

have meaning intrinsically inherent

1:55

to them , but we do them because of

1:57

the meaning that our cultural subscription assigns

2:00

to them .

2:00

I see . So now what happens if there's someone

2:02

within that cultural group that deviates

2:05

from those expectations ?

2:06

So two things happen . One

2:09

people look and go what are you

2:11

doing ? Right ? It becomes a misogynist shock

2:13

to the system , at which point we

2:15

collectively decide is it acceptable

2:18

? I mean , this is how change happens . Someone's

2:20

willing to look silly for just a moment . And

2:23

then we collectively , as as a community

2:25

, decide is it acceptable ? We negotiate

2:28

and construct whether or not it's

2:30

okay , and this process of doing

2:32

so is called legitimation , the social process

2:34

by which we decide what behaviors , what

2:37

artifacts , what ideas

2:39

, what language is acceptable

2:41

for people like us . And when someone does it , we

2:43

either go oh , that's really interesting , that's kind

2:46

of cool , then we're going to do it too . Or we

2:48

go that's super whack , don't

2:50

do it again . And if they do it again

2:52

, they are now subject to

2:54

the social consequences of deviating

2:56

from what people like us do .

2:58

Okay . So now , when you say people like us

3:00

, you're referring to that group that

3:08

, whatever that person belongs to .

3:09

That's right , because culture moves forward on the basis of one simple question Do people like

3:11

me do something like this ? The answer is yes , we do it . The answer is no , we don't . We make the decision

3:13

hundreds , if not thousands , of times a day , whether

3:15

we are aware of it or not . Right , all the things

3:18

that we sort of we take

3:20

up and adopt . They're really just

3:22

byproducts of what people

3:25

like us do .

3:26

Okay , so you've also mentioned this thing

3:28

about intimacy . I

3:31

nformation not being intimate . Can

3:33

you build on that a bit ?

3:34

So say , we just met or we

3:36

haven't met yet and we have a meeting coming up

3:38

, I might jump on LinkedIn to see what

3:41

school you went to , where you're from , where

3:43

you work , maybe who you know , and that's

3:45

a lot of information to have on you , especially if we ever met

3:47

before . I

3:52

don't know you until we've talked . I don't know you until we engage . I don't know you

3:55

until you have revealed who you are and how you see the world . So information may

3:57

be in abundance , but it is

3:59

not analogous to the proximity

4:01

that comes from intimacy . Intimacy

4:03

requires us engaging and once we do

4:06

engage , I go oh , I get

4:08

what John's about .

4:10

Okay , so now from your perspective , in marketing

4:12

and the ad world and strategy

4:15

and all of that , it's the intimacy

4:17

component that's critical for you to determine

4:20

how to move forward with a campaign

4:22

.

4:22

Oh yes , I mean , we have tons of information about

4:25

what people watch , how long they've watched

4:27

it , what they've clicked on , what they've downloaded , and

4:29

those things are helpful for us , but

4:31

we don't know why they've done those things . We

4:34

may assume , we

4:36

may assign what we think , but

4:39

if we don't understand how they see the world , then our

4:41

estimation will always be wrong

4:43

, because what may seem apparent

4:47

for us may not be for those people and

4:50

the way they make meaning ultimately decides

4:53

, ultimately determines what they choose

4:55

to adopt and what they choose to do .

4:57

Okay . So without that intimacy , information

4:59

is just speculative then . So you're creating

5:01

a construct then , without . That's

5:03

not correct . Exactly Well said , okay

5:06

. So now , when you think about communications

5:08

and you want really anything , uh

5:11

, where you go , what are your , what's your demographic , what's

5:13

your audience ? Flesh that out a little

5:15

bit for me how , uh , that may not be the

5:17

most accurate way of moving forward .

5:20

So demographics don't actually describe

5:22

who we are . They're easy , they're easily

5:24

attainable because we can observe it , right

5:26

, but they don't really tell us who we are . For

5:28

instance , I'm 45 years old , I'm

5:30

from Detroit , went to public schools my entire

5:33

life and I'm black . If a marketer saw

5:35

that on a brief they'd go oh , he

5:37

must hang out with those people , buy those things , listen

5:39

to that kind of music , eat that kind of food , because that's

5:42

what people like them do and that sounds racist

5:44

, af for me to say out loud yeah , but that's

5:46

what we do with demographics . And while I am 45

5:48

, I am black , I am from detroit . They go to public schools my

5:50

entire life . I also grew up playing

5:53

jazz as a kid and I swam competitively

5:55

from six years old all the way through high school , and

5:57

I grew up loving the monkeys as much as I

5:59

love tribe called quest , and I was an engineer

6:01

undergrad . These things shaped the way I see the world

6:04

and therefore I navigate the world accordingly

6:06

. The melanin in my skin

6:08

does not reflect how

6:10

I see the world . The experiences may shape

6:12

it , but just because I'm black doesn't

6:14

mean that I believe these things . So therefore

6:17

, using these blunt instruments

6:19

we call demographics they are

6:21

fluid and they are

6:24

easily observed

6:26

, but they aren't real . So , savvy marketers , go

6:28

. Well , let's focus on psychographics . Those are better than

6:30

demographics , and they are Instead of age

6:33

, race , gender , household income . We look at

6:35

what people's attitudes are , we look at what

6:37

they value , what they do , what their interests

6:39

are , and I go yes , that's a far better

6:41

descriptor of people than demographics

6:43

. But what do you think informs

6:46

or influence what you like ? What

6:48

do you think ? Why do you

6:50

think you like what you like ? Go where you go , do what you do

6:52

, eat what you eat . That's culture , which

6:55

means to me the logic there

6:57

. Therefore , ergo , culture

7:00

becomes the best way to describe people if

7:02

for no other reason than the fact that we self-identify

7:05

by our cultural subscription . No one looks

7:07

in the mirror and say I'm a digitally savvy

7:09

Gen Z . No one does

7:11

that right . No people say I'm

7:14

a Collins or I'm a Christian , or

7:16

I'm a sneakerhead , or I'm a runner

7:18

or I'm a cosplayer if that's your thing

7:20

, if

7:24

that's your thing . We use these monikers to help us carve out the place that we occupy in the

7:26

world and we behave accordingly in an effort to maintain good standing citizenship

7:29

within our communities .

7:31

You just mentioned a number of different things that define

7:33

the individual when you look in the mirror . Would

7:35

that be the notion of the multi-hyphenate

7:37

? That's right , so you're a runner , hyphen , communicator

7:40

, hyphen , musician , hyphen et

7:48

cetera .

7:48

You're all these different things . When I'm with these people , I act accordingly

7:50

, and that's kind of the interesting part , that not only are we byproducts of our collectives

7:53

, but we also know

7:55

how to act when we're in different places . For

7:57

instance , I grew up listening to Eddie

7:59

Murphy , watching Eddie Murphy movies the standup it's

8:01

great , um , at far too young of an

8:03

age , by the way , and I feel totally

8:06

licensed to tell Eddie Murphy jokes at the bar

8:08

with my friends , but I would never tell those

8:10

jokes in the sanctuary with the exact same friends

8:12

. Why ? Because

8:14

our environments have cultural

8:16

expectations as well and therefore

8:19

we engage in them accordingly

8:21

.

8:22

So that's powerful , because I think a lot of people

8:24

will say well , I'm an individual and

8:26

I'm that person I meet whatever audience

8:28

I'm in front of , and that I

8:30

think there's a notion we can dispel .

8:32

I think that , like this kind of leads

8:34

into the idea of authenticity . You

8:36

know authenticity as a one scholar

8:38

, David Brown , Jerry , talks about . It's about transcending

8:41

context , that no matter where I am

8:43

, I am me . And the idea is that

8:45

it's true no

8:52

matter where I am , I am me , but I am not monolithic , that I am a reflection , or rather an alchemy

8:54

of all these different identity markers I

8:56

use to carve out the place that I occupy

8:58

in the social world and therefore I

9:00

behave according when I'm in these places .

9:02

I love that . I'm an alchemy . Now

9:08

I just want to step back and I think we addressed this . But I just want to confirm

9:10

, when we talked about the mean , the median , the mode , that we've got

9:12

the norm that's right in the middle , and when we've

9:14

got the outliers that left and right , you

9:16

define that as subculture . So

9:19

now flush that a little bit . That's kind

9:21

of where we said you're with your group of .

9:25

Yeah , so think of this . So the population

9:27

there is a normal curve , what is normal in

9:30

a particular context , right ? So let's just say , among

9:36

the population of the United

9:38

States , when it comes to sneakers

9:40

, the normal curve looks like this right

9:42

, and the people in the middle they wear

9:44

the sneakers that people consider to be acceptable

9:47

. Right , people

9:52

consider to be acceptable . Right , they're typically mediocre , they're typically

9:54

right across the middle average , and there's people on the far side of that . Those

9:57

are the sneakerheads , and their sneakers

9:59

are far more exploratory

10:01

, they're far more outside

10:04

of what is considered normal , and

10:07

what happens is that they rock those sneakers first

10:09

and then they begin to penetrate

10:12

to the population to become normal . I

10:14

remember when Kanye

10:16

West's sneakers , yeezys , first came out with Adidas

10:18

, when I first saw them , I was like these shoes are hideous

10:20

. They're like moth shoes . Why would anyone

10:23

wear this ? Five years

10:25

later , I own four pair , right

10:27

, and that's the idea that the more

10:29

I saw people wearing them , the more legitimated

10:32

it became and the more I was like , oh

10:34

, actually , kind of cool . The media , the literature

10:36

, refers to this as as the

10:38

mere exposure effect , that the more we

10:41

see a thing , the more we tend to prefer

10:43

it , and the idea is that the more people

10:45

do a thing , the more we go oh , it's

10:55

kind of cool , not that weird , it's actually kind of funny . And then before long

10:57

, we adopt the behavior . So everything that is normal now , that is normal or popular

11:00

culture , all started subculturally . And what happens in the subculture is that they see

11:02

that everyone's starting to wear a particular

11:04

sneaker , they go we're not wearing that anymore , we're going

11:06

to try something else . And that's how we get this cycle

11:08

of change always happening . That

11:10

once

11:13

was subcultural . When it becomes

11:15

populous or popular culture

11:17

, the subculture goes find something different

11:19

. And here's the beautiful part that

11:24

there is a normal curve within the subculture . How

11:26

subcultural are you ? Are you on

11:29

the fringe of that subculture ? Are you right

11:31

in the middle of that subculture ? And then within that , within

11:33

that normal curve , is another normal curve and it gets smaller

11:36

and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller

11:38

, because we are social animals . So

11:40

as much as we want to be different , we want to stand out

11:42

we also want to fit in with people like ourselves

11:44

. We're wired for that .

11:46

I love this , so talk to me a little bit about the network

11:48

effect and how that goes .

11:50

Yes , yeah , so the network

11:52

effect , this idea that

11:54

something starts small and

11:56

it begins to connect with

11:58

other people , disparate people , in

12:00

such a way that we go from a small thing

12:03

to scale . And I like to think

12:05

of it sort of like a forest fire

12:07

. We talk about the science of forest fires , essentially this

12:09

we think that a big

12:11

sort of flame happened in

12:13

the entire forest , called fire . That's

12:15

not how most forest fires works . They

12:18

mostly work because the conditions

12:20

were perfect there was debris on the ground

12:23

, the wind was blowing , the air was dry

12:25

, the trees were close together and when the

12:27

conditions are perfect , the smallest

12:29

spark could set the forest aflame . And

12:31

that's how network effects happen that the conditions

12:34

are just perfect and the smallest

12:36

idea could begin to

12:38

propagate among a group of people

12:40

to go from a small niche

12:43

thing to a mass adoption

12:46

.

12:46

Okay . So when we think back to your previous

12:49

example pardon me of sneakerheads , well

12:52

, that subculture picks up , it generates

12:54

excitement , and then the

12:57

general population picks it up , and

12:59

that's the network and it happens not because of advertising

13:01

and marketing communications .

13:03

It happens because of us , we , the media

13:05

people . We observe people like ourselves and

13:07

we go . Hmm , that's interesting and it's

13:09

important for idea generators

13:12

, marketers , companies , institutions alike , because

13:14

there is no external force more influential

13:16

to behavior than culture . And what drives

13:19

culture we do it

13:21

may be expressed through media , but we

13:23

, humanity , we drive culture . That's

13:25

why people trust people more than any form of marketing communication

13:28

, television print out of home radio . We trust

13:30

people . In fact , we trust strangers more

13:32

than we trust marketers , which should be super sobering

13:34

, right . That's why we , you know , we trust sexy

13:36

lover 24 from Denver

13:38

, who left a review on on

13:41

Amazon . Because we trust

13:43

people .

13:44

You know that's really interesting . And when you start thinking

13:46

about disinformation , that's

13:49

a completely different kettle of fish , because

13:51

uh , yeah , you'll have , uh , you'll have

13:54

the media telling her or a science publication telling

13:56

you one thing uh , you know , about

13:58

global warming , for example and then

14:00

sexy lover 24 from Denver saying

14:02

something completely different .

14:05

And the idea is like which one is true , right ? It

14:08

usually depends on who's telling us Right . So how do you who's ?

14:10

telling us Right . So how do you dispel that ? How do you find

14:12

out the truth ?

14:13

I would say that it requires tons

14:16

of public discourse . Yeah , like

14:18

it has to happen in

14:20

a public square where they get to

14:22

see other people that they think that they're like

14:25

go , yeah , dude , we don't do that

14:27

, you go . Oh , I didn't realize . Oh

14:35

, man , I didn't realize . Oh man , I didn't realize , you do that too . It's almost like . It's almost like our the shift that we've had with

14:37

mental health , that mental health has become much more adopted into the popular zeitgeist

14:39

, not because of any ad campaign , but because people were saying that

14:41

he had to go to my therapist . You go , whoa , you go to

14:44

therapy . You go . Yeah , dude , you don't

14:46

. You go . No , I'm not crazy , he's like you'd's like

14:48

you're gonna be crazy . Go to therapy . What do you mean ? He

14:50

goes therapy , she goes therapy , you go . I

14:52

had no clue , and once I realized

14:54

that people like me do it , I go . I guess

14:56

it's okay , and then I go . Maybe

14:59

I should have a therapy session

15:01

as well . That's how these things reverberate through

15:03

our people .

15:04

So this has been a great conversation

15:07

. Now I'm just wondering , as we

15:09

wrapped things up , when you

15:11

are engaging in the world , as you do

15:13

every day , how do you define yourself

15:15

? What's ?

15:15

your multi-hyphenate . I was

15:17

thinking of myself as a

15:21

follower of Christ , Georgia

15:23

and Ivy's father , and

15:26

a servant . I feel like I

15:28

feel like I've been putting this earth to

15:30

serve , and I

15:32

think that that's kind of what we're all meant

15:34

to do . And the way I serve is by helping people

15:36

realize the best version of themselves . And since that

15:38

is what I feel I was putting

15:40

this earth to do , I always keep that in

15:42

the forefront of my identity to ensure

15:44

that I'm living up to it .

15:46

That notion of service is really beautiful , but

15:48

I have to add a couple more . You've

15:50

got a book in your hand there , oh yes , and

15:53

you know we'd have to have writer . You

15:55

said jazz musician swimmer , do

15:58

you play jazz ?

15:59

I used to play used to play trumpet , but

16:01

you know what I think about . I think

16:03

about the book , authorship , scholarship

16:06

teaching and

16:08

even as a practitioner I thought those are all

16:11

just ways in which I serve right , they're all

16:13

just different . Scholarship teaching

16:15

, and even as a practitioner , I find those are all just

16:17

ways in which I serve . They're all just different vehicles that drive the

16:19

exact same purpose . Marcus , this was great , a lot of fun . Thanks so much for

16:22

having me . Yeah , thank you Appreciate you . Yeah

16:24

, I appreciate you . That was awesome .

16:25

I can't wait to dig in . Hopefully

16:27

you got it all . Yeah , we're good . Can I have a picture ? Yeah , let's do

16:29

it here

16:31

. We're good . Can I have a picture ? Yeah , let's do it . Here's a picture with everybody else but me . Thanks for joining us on Shift today and thanks

16:33

to Marcus Collins for joining us at InVentures and

16:36

for the opportunity to have that quick

16:38

interview afterwards . As usual

16:40

, you can find us online at shiftalbertainnovatesca

16:44

or on any of

16:46

your favorite streaming services .