How brands can become playgrounds for culture

Welcome to 2025, where everything is faster, louder, and somehow, even your toaster has a TikTok account.Once upon a time, a pair of shoes was just … shoes. You bought them because they were comfortable or made you look marginally cooler. Simple times. But those days are gone.

Now, brands don’t just sell products; they sell worldviews, secret handshakes, and the illusion that buying their stuff makes you part of something bigger. If you’re a brand that hasn’t figured this out yet, this is your heads up.

Brands don’t just need to get culture — they need to make it.

Take Nike for example, they’re not in the sportswear business anymore; they’re in the motivation business. More locally, The Giving Movement isn’t just about comfortable, eco-friendly hoodies — it’s a lifestyle choice wrapped in the fabric of activism.

And then there’s Spotify, who recently pulled off a cultural mic drop in Saudi Arabia.

They dropped a visually-unassuming meme featuring Zouhair Bahaoui — one of Saudi’s biggest rising artists — with the caption: “Imagine being friends with someone who doesn’t know this song.”

Boom. The internet erupted. The post raked in more than 146,023 interactions, got nearly 64,000 shares, and even the artist himself jumped in. And this was all organic.

So what made this meme take off?

Here’s the secret: SpotifyKSA wasn’t just paying attention to what people were listening to — they clocked where they were listening. Bahaoui’s music was quietly making waves in fitness circles, a niche fandom crossover waiting to happen. All Spotify had to do was drop the perfect beat into the mix — and just like that, they didn’t just ride the trend, they became the conversation.

How can brands earn this cultural capital?

Simple: brands that don’t just show up to the party, but bring the chat, the playlist, and maybe even a personal hype squad. If you want people to care about your brand, you have to care about them first.

The internet isn’t one giant blob of culture. It’s a messy,  patchwork of micro-communities. Think of them like secret underground clubs, each with its own handshake and inside jokes. The trick isn’t to crash the party — it’s to understand who’s hosting it.

Combine subcultures, spark conversations, and suddenly, your brand isn’t just selling a product; it’s selling a vibe, a lifestyle, a reason to care.

Understanding cultural capital is often less about what the conversation is, and more about where it’s happening. If your comment section is peaking … congratulations, you win.

Brands that curate culture don’t just catch moments; they plant the seeds for them. And when they do it right, they go beyond their product and become something bigger. They become a movement.

Or, at the very least, they become the brand that’s dominating your group chat. And that’s a pretty strong place to start, too.

By Mike Khouri, Founder and CEO at Tactical.