There is a film that was released last year that deserves more strategic attention than it received. Shot at the Sporting Club in Beirut, a raw, sea-facing institution that has anchored Lebanese summers for generations, it features two men playing backgammon in Gucci. No set dressing. No aspirational gloss. At one point, the script acknowledges, with complete composure, that Lebanese people will take out a loan to buy expensive things they cannot afford. Directed by Jad Rahmé and released in partnership between Gucci and Dazed MENA, it is a luxury house doing something most houses still cannot bring themselves to do: sitting down inside a culture rather than standing above it. And it raises a question every luxury chief marketing officer (CMO) should sit with: what does it take to earn that kind of trust?
That film is not a creative anomaly. It is one of the clearest demonstrations of cultural power, and it points to three structural shifts redrawing the rules of luxury marketing in 2026.
The collapse of vertical authority
For most of the twentieth century luxury sold distance. Celebrity placement moved inventory because consumers aspired to inhabit a world they could not access.
The gap between consumer and product was the product. That logic has broken down. Kantar
data shows that more than four in five brands have no strong emotional connection with consumers. A
brand that speaks from above is no longer aspirational. It is simply unheard.
This is not the death of aspiration. Consumers still aspire, particularly in luxury. But the direction has shifted. Where it once moved vertically toward figures that felt socially distant. Now it moves horizontally toward identities, communities, and lifestyles that feel emotionally attainable. The Gucci x Dazed MENA film works because it understood this. It did not attempt to elevate Beirut. It paid attention to it.
From aspiration to identification
Coach spent several years demonstrating what happens when a luxury brand loses its cultural footing. By 2015 it had drifted into discount territory, leaving behind every customer who had given the brand meaning. The recovery from 2021 was not built on a rebrand. It was built on re-entry. Coach Play turned physical retail from a transaction into a destination. The coffee shop. The personalisation. The charm additions. Influencer relationships built around relatable creative personalities rather than borrowed celebrity distance. Coach did not reclaim relevance by shouting. It rebuilt trust by showing up inside the communities it wanted to belong to.
This is what cultural power looks like in practice: the discipline of identifying where a brand has cultural permission to operate, and building presence from within rather than projecting from outside. Sixty percent of consumers trust influencer recommendations more than brand messaging. The question is always whether the alignment is real or merely paid. Buying a celebrity is a transaction. Buying into a community is a commitment. The first requires spend. The second requires contribution. Most brands know how to do the former. Very few have the patience to do the latter.
The dissolution of luxury as destination
The third shift is the most commercially consequential and least discussed. Luxury is no longer a category consumers travel toward. It is dissolving into the fabric of lives already being lived. Six Senses is the clearest illustration. It does not sell resort stays. It sells a philosophy of longevity and reconnection, embedded into sleep programming, nutrition, biohacking and wellness retreats. Every experience is designed around an identity the guest has already committed to: someone who treats their body and mind as a long-term investment. The brand does not ask its guests to aspire toward luxury. It wraps around them and elevates from within. Eighty-one percent of luxury consumers prioritise quality, experience and meaningful brand connection over product alone. And yet 60 per cent of luxury collaborations fail to drive long-term brand value. The gap is where cultural power lives: identifying not just where an audience is, but what they are building their identity around, and whether a brand has earned the right to be part of it.
The brands gaining real cultural ground are not broadcasting at communities. They are being admitted into them.
In Beirut, Gucci sat down, ordered coffee and played backgammon. It did not look away from the economic reality outside the Sporting Club. It honoured it. That is not a production decision. That is a strategic one.
Too many brands mistake visibility for belonging. One can be bought. The other has to be earned. And in 2026, consumers know exactly which is which.
By Lana Bdeir, Chief Growth Officer, M+C Saatchi Middle East
