The language, defined.

9 terms

Contextual integrity

Maintaining respect for cultural histories, norms and settings when designing brand experiences, to avoid missteps and appropriation.

Most public failures are integrity failures, not creative ones.

Cultural alignment

The strategic process of ensuring brand initiatives resonate authentically with community values, beliefs and norms.

It is the difference between being welcomed into a culture and being tolerated by it.

Cultural appropriation

Taking the aesthetics, language or ritual of a community without its consent, credit or benefit.

The fastest way to convert cultural interest into public distrust.

Cultural branding

Building a brand's meaning through the culture it participates in, not just the product it sells.

It decides whether people see you as part of a scene or a visitor taking photographs of it.

Cultural fluency

The ability to read context, history and power inside a culture and act accordingly.

Fluency is what lets a brand move quickly without getting it wrong.

Intersectionality

A framework for understanding how overlapping social identities create unique experiences of advantage or disadvantage.

Audiences are not segments. They are people holding several positions at once.

Performance vs presence

The distinction between superficial one-off gestures and genuine, sustained commitment to cultural causes.

Presence compounds. Performance expires the week it launches.

Redistribution

Allocating resources, visibility and opportunities from brands back to communities to address systemic inequities.

It is the test of whether an initiative was investment or extraction.

Soft power

The ability to influence culture and behaviour through attraction, persuasion and storytelling rather than coercion.

Most cultural influence is soft power. Budget is not.