Meet Marcus Collins, the architect of some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last decade, who argues that culture is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behaviour in his new book "For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be"
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. I'm producer & host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is produced in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada.
Meet Marcus Collins, the architect of some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last decade, who argues that culture is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behaviour in his new book "For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be"
About Marcus
I’m Marcus! I study cultural contagion and meaning-making to help bridge the academic-practitioner gap for companies (from “blue-chip” brands to non-profits) that aim to put ideas in the world that inspire people to take action. When I’m not putting ideas in the world as the Head of Strategy at Wieden+Kennedy New York, I put people in the world as a Clinical Marketing Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Throughout my career, I've had the great privilege of being acknowledged for my strategic and creative contributions (American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement, Thinkers50 & Deloitt class of 2023 Radar List, and Ad Age's 40 Under 40 recipient, & Crain’s Business 40 Under 40 recipient) and launch successful campaigns like “Cliff Paul” for State Farm, the Made In America Music Festival, and Google’s “Real Tone” technology—among others.
Prior to my tenure in advertising, I worked in music and tech as a startup co-founder (Muse Recordings) and then led iTunes + Nike sport music initiatives at Apple (iTunes Partner Marketing) before running digital strategy for Beyoncé.
I am also the author of the best-selling book, For The Culture, which examines the influence of culture on human behavior and unpacks how everyone from marketers to activists can leverage culture to get people to take action. Throughout the book, I rely on literature, case studies, learnings from both my practicing work, and data from my academic work to illustrate the “whys” and the “hows” so that readers will be empowered to successfully apply these learnings to their own pursuits.
I am a graduate of Temple University (DBA) and the University of Michigan (BSE in Materials Science Engineering and MBA with an emphasis in strategic brand marketing). But most importantly, I am Alex's husband and Georgia & Ivy's father.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Meet Marcus Collins, the architect of some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last decade, who argues that culture is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behavior and his new book for the culture, the power behind what we buy, what we do, and who we want to be. It's a great interview. Let's listen in now. Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast, how are you doing this afternoon?
Marcus Collins 00:37
I'm doing really well. Thanks so much for having me.
Michael LeBlanc 00:40
Well, thanks for joining me, now I see in your, your bio, you're a Michigan type person, Ann Arbor, is that where we're finding you today?
Marcus Collins 00:47
Yes, sir. I am very much a Michigan type person born and raised in Detroit, went to Michigan for my undergrad and my master's and I'm now a professor here. So, I love the place so much that I couldn't leave it.
Michael LeBlanc 00:58
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, close to, close to Canada, close to the border, spent lots of time Windsor Detroit border, that's for sure.
Marcus Collins 01:05
Oh, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 01:06
So very familiar. Well, tell us a bit about yourself, your, your background, what you do for a living. I mean, you got big brands and familiar names as part of your experience and I was reading through your, your index, and it reads like the index of Zeitgeist and memes for the past decade is going through those, those names, but tell us a little bit about yourself what you do for a living?
Marcus Collins 01:25
Well, I'm a product of traits. Now I start that way, because I feel like it's very much about who I am and how I see the world and I had the fortunate pleasure of putting ideas in the world as a faculty member at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan in the marketing department, and also put ideas in the road as a practitioner and I think about those two worlds converging at a space that bridges academia, the things that we rigorously interrogate to how we practice them what it means in real life and over the course of my career, I've had a chance to work with some of the biggest brands in the world across a myriad of industries, to help them activate people in such a way that gets them to move in a collective fashion and that's really what I study as a researcher, what I call cultural contagion, or what is called cultural contagion, understanding how people make meaning, and how we could legitimate brands and branded products, ideas, messages, and politicians, organizations and the like, into our cultural practice.
Michael LeBlanc 02:25
Now you describe in the book, this blend of academia and practice as the biggest cheat code in your career, talk more about that insight and, and the kind of how you get to work with these brands, through your agency affiliation, and then integrated into your, your academic work.
Marcus Collins 02:40
Well, academia, by and large is just trying to understand the world around us and a better understanding of the world around us helps us see the world in a much clearer fashion that we wouldn't without things like theory and I call that a cheat code, because I take those things that people way smarter than me have interrogated and deconstructed and take those learnings and apply them to the work that we do on a day to day basis in the world of advertising with brands and branded products and I call it a cheat code, because we don't do enough of it. We don't look at it a lot. We don't study it a lot. And when we do study it, though, when we do understand it, we have a much better chance of leveraging its power and since I've been engaged in this world of academia, I feel like my work as a practitioner has increased dramatically. You know, just, just a hockey stick growth as a practitioner and you know, I, I tried to tell people who are early in their career like do a lot of reading now, study the behavioral sciences, you will be far better in your practice than I was at their age.
Michael LeBlanc 03:47
Well, I like that hockey stick reference by the way, there's a throw to the Canadian audience for the Detroit Red Wings.
Marcus Collins 03:57
That's right.
Michael LeBlanc 03:58
You know, your, your, your thinking around that really resonates with me. I have another podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, he's a professor at Dalhousie, we, he's called The Food Professor and he does exactly what you describe, and we have a great time on the podcast is I come from the business world we talk about grocery and food and he's a blend of, of the academic and practice as well. So that really resonates with me what you're, what you're saying I can see immediately the benefit of it.
Michael LeBlanc 04:25
Now you work in a lot of categories: music, sports, entertainment, the first 20 pages of your book. There's already several examples of beer campaigns, Pabst Blue Light, Budweiser, what is it about that beverage that is, that is so powerful. I don't know whether it makes it a barometer of culture. Is it just the pure amount of money spent with advertising agencies and the sheer volume of messages?
Marcus Collins 04:50
I think that product to your point serves, it benefits from, from a few different things. One, there is a ton of media that is spent to promote those products, those branded products and therefore, they have an outsized voice in, in the marketing production or production of the cultural production of marketers, but also the product is used and as an, and use in tandem in these occasions that are culturally driven whether it's sports, music, our sit down, you know barbecues and relationships with our people, you know, we go get a drink together, you know, we, the product in a lot of ways the lubricant for, for social interaction, and therefore, it tends to find itself in, in the throes of marketing opportunities within cultural, cultural executions.
Michael LeBlanc 05:43
I was in Amsterdam last year; I went on a tour of the Heineken Brewery. Have you ever been on that tour? Have you ever happened to be in Amsterdam?
Marcus Collins 05:49
I've not. I've never worked on Heineken. I haven't, I haven't been, haven't been motivated so much to do the tour.
Michael LeBlanc 05:57
They're not a client, so I'm not going to do the tour.
Marcus Collins 05:59
That’s right. I’ve done Anheuser-Busch though.
Michael LeBlanc 06:00
You're a hardcore brand guy, I'm not going to drink that beer. No way. I don't even want to talk about it, cancel the podcast, get off the podcast. Anyway, there's a quote in, in and on the tour, there's some posters and one of them says there's always something interesting happening when there's a beer on the table. Now I want to turn our minds to some very recent events that are happening connected to beer, proving it's got a powerful voice in the culture. Now, what do we make of all this, is this just a demonstration of the power of beer to move or be used by, in culture what, what do you make of all that?
Marcus Collins 06:35
Well, I think to the point of Heinekens quote, is that beer has license to be a part of all these different moments that we will consider cultural moments where the production of cultural work through music, whether they're sports that we engage in, whenever we're entering the discourse, we do it over a drink, meaning it has a right to be there, and therefore it has licensed to partake in the social discourse in which it is adjacent. Things get a little-
Michael LeBlanc 07:08
More than adjacent lately, right?
Marcus Collins 07:10
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 07:11
Like it's now part of some kind of shooting gun thing. I mean, it's kind of gone crazy a little bit.
Marcus Collins 07:16
Right. Well, I think that that's, that's actually I think the interesting part here is that while they're, these brands have license to be a part of the discourse. The question is, does the brand have something meaningful to say. Take a brand like Bud Light, I would argue that Bud Light was really credential-ized to be a part of the discourse when it comes to the LGBTQ plus community. I've worked on Bud Light for years and years ago, almost 10 years ago, over 10 years ago, actually, and actually did work on marriage equality, that Bud Light was a part of, I think we did we did campaigns around it, we did messaging around it and Bud Light had long been an advocate, supporter, an ally of this community, realizing that this community was important to them as a commercial entity. So for them to tap a trans influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, that makes a whole lot of sense, of course, they would do that, because they've been about that life for years. The sad part is that the main, the moment that they, they were met with resistance, they flinched.
Michael LeBlanc 08:22
They did. I mean, and I don't know much about the, the deep details but looks like they threw the poor Product Manager under the bus as well. Said, aw you know, it was a random act like they, they didn't just flinch, they, they really back, more than backpedaled is it, is it just, you know, they just found themselves in a corner and it just became too much of a, too much energy around the brand?
Marcus Collins 08:44
Well, I think that I wasn't in the meeting, I wasn't in those rooms. I wasn't working the account at the time. So I don't have all the, all the understanding of the nuances that went on, but from an, as outsider looking in, it didn't help that the marketing manager actually was vocal about the challenges that she had navigating this brand in the current landscape and that didn't do any, any you hurt any favors, but also for the brand to distance themselves from the manager didn't look good. Just all these things don't look good. I think that's actually the major takeaway for me, as a marketer and as an academic here is that, you know, their use of the influencer wasn't good or bad.
Marcus Collins 09:30
Well, it depends on how you look at it. For some people, it was bad, for others it was good and when it comes to culture, culture is the, realize meaning making system it is how we make meaning of the world and the world around us is not objective. It is subjective and what's right or wrong, good or bad, depends on how you see the world and for Bud Light, for it to walk away from its manager too, or to distance itself from its marketing manager. It did not look good to some people; it may look good to others. It's not right or wrong, it's not good or bad. It all depends and because the world is subjective, not objective, then you as the brand have to be guided by a very clear conviction, a way you see the world.
Michael LeBlanc 10:15
Right.
Marcus Collins 10:16
Some cultural characteristics that govern what you do and I think that when a brand flinches when they backpedal, because of resistance, it looks like oh, you're not convicted on this thing, either way. So as a result, when one side, the, the opposition is pushing against you, and then you sort of back away from the community that you were supporting, just kind of sit in the middle of being safe, that you become sort of a myth to everybody.
Michael LeBlanc 10:42
I guess the counterpoint to that would have been Nikes execution around the,
Marcus Collins 10:47
Colin Kaepernick.
Michael LeBlanc 10:49
Colin Kaepernick, right. I mean, I wouldn't say even double down but they did. Almost the opposite. Right. So they, but that was a calculated, that was also I mean, these things are also calculated risks or opportunities, depending how you look at it, right.
Marcus Collins 11:02
But they're somewhat calculated, I mean, none of them, none of it is, is predictable.
Michael LeBlanc 11:07
Yeah, sure.
Marcus Collins 11:08
Nike, Nike has long, has long said, we stand for athletes, and we're always going to stand with the athlete. I mean, we saw it even with Tiger Woods when he was experiencing his politic-, his public downfall. Nike is the only endorser that stood with them, because they stand with athletes. In the case of Colin Kaepernick, they stand with athletes, and when people were burning their Nikes said, okay, cool. We stand with athletes.
Michael LeBlanc 11:34
I'd love to have a, for another podcast, a broader discussion on the nature of culture and sports together, but for now, I want to get to what brought us together, which is your new book, ‘For The Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do and Who We Want To Be’. Now you're an academic accustomed to writing was, was crafting this book easy for you, was it capturing on the page decades of thought or did you, did you have to extract it out and talk about your experience writing the book?
Marcus Collins 12:01
It was the tale of two cities, the best of times, and the worst of times. You know-
Michael LeBlanc 12:08
I wrote a great summary, the publisher said, yes, now you got to deliver on time kind of stuff.
Marcus Collins 12:12
In a lot of ways, in a lot of ways. I mean, I think that, you know, the, the contents of the book, were things I've been ruminating on for years, things I've been studying for years, things I've been practicing for years, but never quite coalesced into pros, that will get to a very clear articulation, and ultimately help people leverage the thinking, I'm newer to the academic world than I am the practicing world, I've been practicing for longer than I've been an academic. So, the idea of crystallizing thoughts into something that could be interrogated, and ultimately leveraged is a new muscle that I've been working out.
Marcus Collins 12:51
And so this first outing was really powerful for me, and also painful in that way of, I want to make sure that my colleagues on the academic side, say that yeah, the way you describe that idea, you maintain the integrity of the thinking, but also on the practicing side, I want to make sure that my colleagues, my clients, my students who want to practice, understand the idea that it's not too esoteric, it's not too abstract, that it is clear, digestible, but also, it has a lot of integrity to the, to the thinking as well and then balancing that was a challenge for me and thank God, I had such a great editor to kind of keep me on the straight and narrow, constantly saying, I don't know what this means, Marcus, or, or is this you-
Michael LeBlanc 13:37
Or say more about this or whatever, right?
Marcus Collins 13:39
Exactly, exactly and so that process, for me, has just been unbelievably helpful. While it was painful going through it, like all new things are and should be, it was really helpful for me as I think about these ideas and try to articulate them in ways that people can do something about them in classrooms, on stages, in boardrooms and in consultation opportunities, as well.
Michael LeBlanc 14:02
Who'd you read the book for?
Marcus Collins 14:04
I wrote the book for practitioners first, for people who want to get people to move. Ultimately, the book at its core is that it's to help people get people to move. So, it's focused on people who have, who have a vested interest in getting people to adopt behavior. That's not only marketers, but that's leaders, managers, activists, politicians, entrepreneurs, in some ways. All of us one would say no, I would never say that the target was all it was everyone, but it was definitely people who have, who have a very clear intention to get people to adopt behavior, but I also realized, while writing it from a pragmatic perspective, that there were some personal things that unearthed that there were these invisible forces that we call culture, that those things influence so much of what we do a daily basis.
Marcus Collins 15:00
So many of our decisions, if not all of them, are influenced by our cultural subscription, that we don't even know them, because we don't have the language to describe what's happening to us. And because we don't have the language to describe it, we don't have much agency to do anything about it and the hope, as I was writing this, was practitioners was also sort of writing it for me for Marcus 20, some odd years ago, who went into engineering because that's what you're supposed to do, if you did well in math and science as a high school student, especially if you're a black, Good night and, and I went into engineering, because that's what the expectations were of me.
Marcus Collins 15:35
And while I enjoyed engineering somewhat, but definitely was fascinated by it, I didn't think that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but I didn't know how to undo that. I didn't know how to push against that, because I didn't have the language to describe what I was experiencing what I experienced the, the resistance or the obstacle in those early college years, but now that I have better language, the hope is to talk to people who were like me who are like me now trying to figure out their life and saying, I think I'm supposed to do this, because those are the conventional wisdoms. Those are the expectations and conventions of people like me; however, we do have a tendency to explore things that may not seem like I must do this and I think that's a really powerful takeaway that didn't realize that until I started writing the book, and it didn't really click for me until I finished the book.
Michael LeBlanc 16:29
Well, let's talk a little bit more about the book, give folks a bit of a sneak peek about what it's all about. So, culture, you know, it's one of those words that's often used, maybe its meaning becomes a bit lost, because I think gets overused sometimes, but unpack culture for us. I think you've been doing a fantastic job so far, but I take us on a quick tour of the book, what's the through line, central theme that you'd like readers to take away and learn specifically, just to get a sense of the heart, the book that's going to be in their hands, hopefully, shortly after this interview.
Marcus Collins 17:00
Amen. So the, the argument of the book is pretty straightforward, that there is no external force more influential to human behavior than culture, full stop, in everything we do, what we, how we dress, how we adorn ourselves, where we work, who we marry, if we marry, where we go to school, if we go to school, where you vacation, what you eat, how you bury the dead, if you bury the dead, all these things are byproducts of our cultural subscription, but the challenge is that we don't have the great language to, to define it.
Marcus Collins 17:29
So what is culture, I think about culture through a Durkheimian lens, that culture is the system of values, symbols and norms that demarcate who we are and what people like us do. Right, there, it's a system of systems that consists of conventions and expectations that govern daily behavior. And we take on these behaviors, we do these things, we don these artifacts, we speak in a certain way, we consume certain cultural production, not because of what it is, but because of who we are, and the book takes that perspective and illuminates it throughout different case studies different contexts, and then provides the reader with the skills the tools that one might need to leverage culture in an effort to get people to adopt behavior.
Michael LeBlanc 18:23
There's, there's so many great examples in the book, I want to focus on one. I'm just gonna pick one that kind of resonated with me, but a lot of them did. You tell the interesting story about Peloton, and I found it fascinating when it was happening and even after the fact, you know, no doubt, very well thought out ad, about gifting a Peloton that went entirely sideways on them. What happened there, right ad, wrong context? How do big, sophisticated companies or ad companies miss the downside or is it just caught up in a, in a broader cultural context that just kind of, you know, gets accelerated by the platform's or whatever happened there, talk about that one for a sec.
Marcus Collins 19:00
It's exactly what you said, cultural context, what is cultural context what-, we know what culture is, it's this system of systems of conventions and expectations, but what is context, its meaning and culture is the realize meaning making system, culture is the means by which we make meaning and this is where Peloton went wrong and it's so unfortunate because Peloton has an amazing product. I used to do some, I used to do some work with Peloton. So, the people I know are amazing also, but they missed the mark. Not because of ill intent. They missed the mark because they didn't understand the context.
Marcus Collins 19:35
They didn't understand the meaning. That is, they didn't understand the way by which people would see this ad and translate it and the problem is that they put this thing in the world and many people, many, many, many people were offended by it. They said, “What are you doing Peloton?” Because they missed, they missed the perspective that was not their own. They missed the perspective the way by which the ad would have been translated and when it was they, they get a lot blowback because of it, not because of ill intent and not because of any lack of intelligent-, intelligence, it's really just a lack of perspective, a perspective that is not your own and therefore, we, as practitioners, as marketers, as people, and as a human beings, we do a better job of being empathetic of seeing the world through lenses that aren't our own.
Michael LeBlanc 20:22
You know, this is what I find so compelling about your book is that context, or the idea of culture and understanding business decisions, right. That's what I, what I really liked about the book. Now, I'm gonna ask you a funny question. If you could turn back time, I'm gonna go a bit 'Cher' on you since you're a, a cultural and of course, everyone now is humming that to themselves.
Marcus Collins 20:43
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 20:44
If you can go back and turn back time would you eliminate social media, has its role in shaping maybe reflecting in some say manipulating and distorting culture becomes so big, that it's become larger than culture and the cultural context itself and how can brands operate in this environment for, for good or ill, or, you know, it's, it's such a minefield?
Marcus Collins 21:04
Yeah, well, no way, would I turn back time and get rid of that. No way. I mean, think of the value. Let's first talk about what is social media, social media is the media of people. By definition, social means people and media is the vehicle by which information is transferred from one source to another transferred stored from one source to another. So social media is the media of people, we have been social since the beginning of time. These technologies, however, facilitate the media of people such that we're able to get access to things faster, the social learning that that happens, happens faster.
Marcus Collins 21:38
So, it's much more prolifer-, it is accelerated, but it's driven by what is natural, what is human to connect these technologies, they have so much benefit to them, they have benefited tremendously from a social perspective, from a business perspective, from a societal perspective, but just like all things, there are negative consequences and we've experienced them. Things like misinformation, right, bullying, these things are, Marshall McLuhan put it this way. Another Canadian, by the way.
Michael LeBlanc 22:12
Yes, of course.
Marcus Collins 22:13
Marshall McLuhan put it this way that the tech-, that technology are merely extensions of human behavior and all the things that we have used, all the technology we use are extensions of who we are. So social networking platforms also are just extensions of humanity and while we're still figuring out the implications, the negative implications that come with social, social media, the media of people negotiated or facilitated through these technologies that we use, for us to destroy it, to get rid of it, I feel like it, we have to do a far greater calculus to see if it's, if it's, if the benefits outweigh the negative consequences and by and large, I would say they have and they do. I mean, there's civil unrest in countries that we wouldn't even know about, if it weren't for the agency that was given to the people to engage in discourse. I mean, it's through this discourse that we are collectively negotiating, constructing meaning, and we're deciding what people like us do. We are making culture collectively, through these technologies and that's really powerful stuff. Really, really powerful stuff.
Michael LeBlanc 23:24
Last couple of three questions. I know how long and kind of I have a sense for how long it takes for anybody to write a book or just go through the book process in the beginning to the end, you probably wrote some of your book during the COVID era, you touched upon it in the book, do you think that we understand what changes structural changes, I mean, not just the temporary ones to buy more toilet paper, patio heaters that, that shared experience, meant to culture and in our context, marketing and retail marketing?
Marcus Collins 23:53
So I think that we know that, know it intuitively, but it's hard for us to describe and, and I suppose there's so many things in life, that abide by those sort of principles, we know what it is, but don't have the words to use it and culture sits right in the crosshairs of that, to our earlier point where we have the language, it just unpacks so much agency for us, that we can look and describe what's happening to us and around us and we can say, okay, here's why this is an issue. We can fix this, we can tweak that, whether it's societal culture, whether it's familiar culture, the how our family operates, whether it's its corporate culture, how our organization operates, or its consumption culture, how brands and branded products interact with humanity.
Marcus Collins 24:45
You know, it's easy for us to use blunt instruments to describe things without any nuance and the nuances in being human and humanity is nuanced terribly, and without it. We tend to miss the really important parts meet, you know, your question about, about social networking platforms. Imagine if we didn't have that during COVID, good night, maybe we would have been extremely disconnected more than we already were. So, I think that it's important for us to look at the nuances to understand the subtle shades of gray. So that we might be able to fully leverage the opportunities at our disposal and language helps us do that in a massive way.
Michael LeBlanc 25:27
Last question, advice to brands and retail marketers listening and I'm going to frame it in, I'm gonna ask you to frame it in two starts and one stop, how can they take your wisdom and insights from the book in your, your background and history and wisdom and put it into practice, so two things they should start doing right away and one thing they should stop doing maybe, maybe you just observe, it doesn't work or maybe it used to work and it doesn't, what do you think?
Marcus Collins 25:52
Start investing yourself in the social sciences, there are people who are way smarter than me, who have spent their entire lives studying one specific thing about humanity and they have been so gracious with their, with their knowledge, with their brilliance and shared it with the world through publishing, that those works that they have committed themselves to, will help us see the world better. That's the first start, the second start, I would argue which you know, I do in the book that we should think of ourselves as comedians, learn from stand-up comedians, stand-up comedians, observe human behavior and go wow, that was interesting. That was an interesting phenomenon. That was an aha moment or
Michael LeBlanc 26:36
The reason people still watch George Carlin videos, right?
Marcus Collins 26:40
That's right. So you see people and you go, huh, that was a human moment and then you say, well, why is that happening, well, then we apply theory, what people have studied to what we have observed as a way to describe what is going on and when we do that, we can then go on stage and say, hey, you ever notice that we do this, this happens and we all laugh and go that's so us?
Michael LeBlanc 27:02
I never realized that before. Yeah.
Marcus Collins 27:04
Great intimacy. Like, these guys aren't just funny. They are great observers of humanity, and they have a really rich repertoire of theory to describe what's going on and they do it. They tell all the truth and tell it with a slant as Emil-, Emily Dickens puts it, right and when we do that, we are, we connect with people in really powerful ways and comedians have locked that in totally, right. Two stops now right.
Michael LeBlanc 27:29
No one stop, or you can give me two, that's like a bonus because I'm a retailer. So yeah.
Marcus Collins 27:33
Alright, let's, let's do two stops. First stop, stop using demographics. They are terrible. They're blunt objects that don't accurately describe people. They're just not true. Right, age, race, gender, household income. These are the hardware of people, but we're not governed by we don't, we're not we're not in full we don't move because of the hardware removed because of the software, the software that's, that's our culture. Those are the identities that we subscribe ourselves to their the beliefs and ideologies that help us see the world, start looking at people based on their cultural subscription, not based on demographics and the bonus second, if I, if I were to, to give one, stop thinking that your worldview is the only worldview, the world is not objective, it is subjective and the better we understand it, the faster we understand that, the better we'll be as marketers.
Michael LeBlanc 28:29
Well, my guess is Marcu-. Well, my guess is Marcus Collins, his book, ‘For The Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do and Who We Want To Be’. I'm assuming, because I checked it out, your book’s available to all places people would love to buy books. How can folks get in touch, are you a LinkedIn person or let's talk about that for a bit?
Marcus Collins 28:48
I am an all the socials person. You can find me @MarctotheC, M-A-R-C T-O T-H-E C, on all the social places LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, everywhere.
Michael LeBlanc 29:00
Well, fantastic. Well, Marcus, thanks so much for joining me on the mic. It's been a real pleasure to chit and chat with you. It's a great book, I'd recommend it to anybody within the sound of our voice right now and you'll, you'll definitely learn something and benefit from your experience and, and wisdom. So once again, I wish you continued success and thanks for being on the pod.
Marcus Collins 29:18
So grateful. Thank you much.
Michael LeBlanc 29:21
Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure to follow on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically each week and be sure to check out my other retail industry media properties Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis, and the Global E-Commerce Leaders podcast. Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, consumer growth consultant, president of ME LeBlanc & Company Inc, Maven media and keynote speaker. If you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Safe travels everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
culture, book, brand, people, work, podcast, Bud Light, world, marketers, describe, cultural, Peloton, discourse, practice, academic, media, retail, leverage, practitioner, life