How Kantar learned to measure the thing marketers could always feel but never prove. Culture is not fluffy. For the first time we can measure its impact on brand growth.
For years, 'culture' was the fluffy word we threw around in strategy workshops. We all knew when a brand had it. That energy, that pull, that sense of a brand being part of the conversation rather than interrupting it. But try explaining that to a CFO with a spreadsheet open, and the room goes quiet.
That is changing. Culture is no longer the soft stuff. It is measurable, and it is one of the most powerful routes to growth we have.
The multiplier hiding in plain sight
Start with what we already know. Brands that are Meaningfully Different grow faster. When we looked at brands with stronger Meaningful Difference two years ago, they went on to deliver twice as much brand value growth. The brands that doubled their value didn't shout louder. They mattered more.
South Africa's most valuable brands have clearly internalised this. A remarkable 75% of the country's Top 30 brands have strong Meaningful Difference, putting local leaders on par with Kantar's Global Top 100.
So the question becomes: how do you build Meaningful Difference? And this is where culture stops being fluffy.
Cultural vibrancy is the route in
Meaning is emotional magnetism, the pull that draws people towards a brand. Difference is about standing apart, giving people a clear reason to choose you. Cultural vibrancy is what happens when those two forces come together. It's the energy people feel and share when a brand becomes part of culture, showing up in conversations, reflecting emerging values and staying relevant beyond its category.
The numbers make the case. Brands with high cultural vibrancy are seen as 79% more different and 48% more meaningful. Kantar BrandZ analysis of global brands over a decade found that those with high cultural vibrancy grew nearly six times more than those with low cultural vibrancy.
Think about the last Fifa World Cup, a stage where football, politics and brands all played out globally. Levi's showed up as the people's hero, timeless in its distinctive assets and timely in its gentle rebellion against the commercial machine. Nike celebrated the players who rip up the script. Adidas leaned into gritty street football where everyone belongs. Love them or hate them, these brands stayed timeless in essence and timely in culture.
But here's the catch. Chasing trends won't cut it, and borrowed relevance rarely lasts. The brands that win shape culture rather than chase it, and they do it in ways that are true to who they are. Think of brand DNA as a magnetic north: a clear sense of what your brand stands for and how it makes people feel. It tells you which cultural moments to lean into and, just as importantly, which to sit out. Get it right, and two brands can show up in the same cultural moment in completely different ways. Get it wrong, and you're not vibrant. You're tone deaf.
It also takes discipline to tell a fleeting fad from a real cultural shift. That means looking past the surface trend to the tension and human truth driving it, and building on the needs that barely change at all.
Vaseline shows us the beauty in cultural rituals:
Culture also has to earn its keep. Before jumping in, be clear on what you want it to do for the business. Done well, cultural connection can predispose more people to choose your brand, help you find new space to grow into, and even make you easier to find and buy. These are the growth accelerators in Kantar's Blueprint for Brand Growth, and culture can power all three.
Meet Vibe, the way to measure the vibe
Here is the part that should make marketers sit up. Kantar's global team of statisticians, brand builders and cultural enthusiasts has developed Vibe, a proprietary cultural index that tracks and measures a brand's cultural vibrancy and diagnoses what to dial up and dial down. It rests on four forces:
- Visionary: Making the future feel like it's already here. Ahead of the times, fascinating, the brand people can't wait to see what it does next.
- Inspiring: Making people feel proud to belong. Brands that build communities, not audiences.
- Bold: Impossible to ignore, impossible to copy. Not loud or brash, but so distinctive you'd know it with the logo covered.
- Exciting: Creating momentum people want to follow. The challengers shaking things up.
So who is vibing? A look at banking
To put Vibe through its paces, Kantar turned the radar on South Africa's banking brands, speaking to more than 3,800 consumers. The results sorted brands into Cultural Magnets, Cultural Constants and a People's Provocateur, the challenger punching above its weight.
On Visionary, FNB leads, carving out a point of view where innovation means meaningful help and removing friction. On Inspiring, Capitec stands tall, ranking first on being proud to bank with and on commitment to making the world better, all built on a simple promise to bank on better. On Bold, Capitec and FNB again stand out as unmistakable and influential. And on Exciting, GoTyme shows that momentum can beat size, pioneering a 'phygital' model and hyper-accessible inclusivity.
The questions to leave with
No brand wins on all four at once. So before you chase the next cultural moment, ask yourself:
- Where are you starting from? How culturally vibrant is your brand today?
- What do you want culture to do for your business?
- What's your Magnetic North, the values and attributes that set you apart?
- Who do you need to connect with, and what matters to them?
- Which cultural territories can you legitimately shape and own for the long term?
Brands that can answer these won't just be timely in culture. They'll stay timeless in essence. Because the brands best positioned to grow aren't the ones shouting the loudest. They're the ones people feel something about.
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