Murali, Founder and Managing Partner, Jockamo Barnes.Another Cannes is over. Everyone’s back from the Croisette, still buzzing about the brilliant cultural campaigns that dominated this year’s festival. The work was, naturally, impressive – aesthetics perfectly captured, culture authentically represented, local traditions respectfully celebrated, all rooted in rich insights. We’ve never been better at making culturally-relevant advertising.
But here’s the uncomfortable question nobody’s asking: Are we actually supporting these cultures, or are we just bleeding them dry?
I’d argue that most of the ‘culturally relevant’ work we celebrate is sophisticated extraction. We’re mining Middle Eastern subcultures without giving anything meaningful back to the communities we’re borrowing from.
We call ourselves culturally relevant. We’re actually cultural vampires.
The playbook
The pattern is all too familiar. A brand discovers an emerging subculture. They find a ‘powerful’ data point. They hire the right photographer, cast authentic talent (maybe a notable influencer), and nail the aesthetic perfectly.
The campaign wins awards for its cultural authenticity.
The subculture gets nothing beyond their world commodified and their credibility borrowed for three months before the brand moves on to the next trend.
This isn’t cultural engagement. It’s extraction dressed up as relevance. We take the valuable elements – the aesthetics, the language, the credibility – while leaving the actual community no better off. Sometimes even worse, as our involvement accelerates gentrification and erodes authenticity.
We’ve gotten exceptionally good at this. Participating in culture without actually supporting it. And the difference matters more than we’d like to admit.
Subcultures can’t survive our attention
Unlike established institutions that can weather commercial involvement, subcultures are fragile ecosystems. They thrive on scarcity, authenticity, and a tight-knit community. When brands treat them as resources to be harvested, we disrupt the very dynamics that made them culturally powerful to begin with.
How many underground music scenes survived mainstream commercial attention? How many street cultures stay authentic once luxury brands discover them? What happens to gaming communities once they’ve become marketing targets, or to food culture when brands borrow regional culinary traditions for campaigns?
We’re killing the thing we’re trying to benefit from.
Investing in vs extracting cultural work
There are examples that work.
Red Bull remains the gold standard for cultural investment because they didn’t just borrow from extreme sports – they became integral to building it. They funded athletes when no one else would. They created events that didn’t exist. They built platforms that gave the community a voice.
Similarly, Spotify’s investment in Ghana’s Vibrate Space shows what mutually-beneficial infrastructure looks like. Rather than simply featuring Ghanaian artists on playlists, Spotify funded a multi-year community recording studio and music business programme. Over 200 studio bookings, artist mentorship, educational programming, and plans for artist-in-residence programmes – run by locals, for locals. When Spotify’s data showed that Ghanaian artists generate six global streams for every local one, they invested in strengthening the source rather than just celebrating the output.
That’s cultural investment. Putting resources toward making the subculture better off, not just making your brand look ‘relevant.’ It means that if your brand disappeared tomorrow, the subculture would miss you — the difference between a local and tourists with fancy cameras.
Most of our cultural work? Sadly, it fails this test.
Cultural hard truths
Look, I’m not saying brands shouldn’t participate in Middle Eastern culture. Our communities need resources, and brands have resources. But we need to stop pretending that vibe appropriation equals cultural resonance. We need to admit when we’re extracting rather than investing.
Skateboarders don’t need another brand campaign featuring their tricks. They need skate parks, equipment funding, and platforms for their own voices. Supper clubs don’t need brand curated menus. They need resources for better equipment, venues for meals, and support of the artistry.
So as we scroll through the endless LinkedIn humble brags and update our decks with this year’s ‘culturally relevant’ case studies, maybe we should ask better questions than ‘how did they sell that?’
Let’s ask: Did this work make the culture stronger? Would this community be worse off if our involvement ended tomorrow? Are we contributors or just cultural vampires?
Because, if we’re honest, most of our award-winning cultural work is just well-executed vampirism. And vampires, however charming, always leave the things they love weaker.
By Murali, Founder and Managing Partner, Jockamo Barnes
