Brands Want Culture. Do Consumers?
Courtesy of 2×4
Brands Want Culture. Do Consumers?
with Constance Govare, Noora Raj Brown and Charlene Prempeh
By HURS Team
Culture sits at the heart of today’s marketing playbook. Brands are embedding themselves in the spaces once reserved for artists, independent thinkers, and underground communities. They’re funding exhibitions, curating bookshops, hosting panels, and aligning with creatives to gain cultural capital. But beyond the surface, what’s actually being exchanged?
Consumers say they want brands to engage with culture—but do they? Are they buying the books, watching the films, sitting through the talks, or just snapping a photo for the feed? The appetite for culture exists, but does it extend beyond aesthetics and limited-edition merch?
There’s a tension at play: brands want to be seen as cultural contributors rather than corporate entities, while consumers want to be associated with culture without necessarily engaging in it. It raises a bigger question—has cultural participation become a performance? And if so, what does that mean for the artists, writers, and thinkers who rely on real engagement to sustain their work?
At its best, brand involvement can democratize access, fund creativity, and build new platforms for emerging voices. At its worst, it reduces culture to a branding exercise, where authenticity is a strategy, and engagement is measured in impressions.
So, where does that leave us? Are we in a golden age of brand-backed cultural movements, or is this just another cycle of borrowed cool? More importantly—when the campaign ends and the pop-up closes, what’s left behind? We asked three industry experts for their take.
CONSTANCE GOVARE
Constance Govare is the founder of clqssique, a creative consultancy shaped by culture with a taste for enduring appeal. Based between Paris and New York, Govare operates at the intersection of heritage and avant-garde, crafting layered identities across fashion, design, and interiors. Clqssique is both a consultancy and an editorial platform—where Govare shares her distinct lens on culture.
NOORA RAJ BROWN
Noora Raj Brown is a Cannes Lions, CFDA, and Forbes “50 Top CMOs” award-winning marketer, luxury brand consultant, and interior designer. As the former EVP of Brand at goop, she scaled the business from a newsletter to a cultural force, overseeing brand, marketing, creative, partnerships, and retail. With a background spanning media, publishing, and fashion, her work moves between storytelling and strategy. She’s the founder of NRB Creative, co-founder of La Chute, and editor of Objects of Desire. A founding board member of I am a Voter and executive committee member at the Hammer Museum’s Collective, her career and interiors have been featured in Architectural Digest, Vogue, The New York Times, and Cultured.
CHARLENE PREMPEH
Charlene Prempeh is the founder of A Vibe Called Tech, a Black-owned creative agency that is dedicated to approaching creativity through an intersectional lens. Prempeh is also a Financial Times HTSI columnist and contributing editor who writes about design, travel, and culture. She started her career in marketing, working at some of the UK’s most prominent media platforms and art institutions including the BBC, The Guardian, and Frieze. More recently, she launched A Vibe Called Tech to encourage a culturally diverse lens in design, technology, arts, and culture by spearheading partnerships, events, research, and workshops across London and through her journalism and consultancy work. Since its establishment in 2018, A Vibe Called Tech has worked with brands including Gucci, Stine Goya, Faber, Frieze and institutions like Whitechapel Gallery, White Cube, RA and V&A East to deliver ambitious creative output that nourishes communities. Prempeh’s debut book, Now You See Me: 100 Years of Black Design, was published in October 2023.
WHERE ARE YOU WRITING FROM?
ARE BRANDS TREATING CULTURE AS A COMMODITY?
DO CONSUMERS GENUINELY WANT TO ENGAGE WITH CULTURE?
WHAT DOES CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT LOOK LIKE?
WHAT’S NEXT?
DOES COLLABORATION MEAN LOSING AUTHENTICITY?
