Culture can be a competitive advantage if you’re asking the right questions
Most brand teams have more data than they know what to do with. AI is adding to the pile faster than anyone can process it.
Even teams with strong internal research capability often benefit from a specialist who works at the intersection of culture, semiotics, and strategic foresight - a layer that's rarely built in-house at the depth needed.
When the brief is about meaning - why a category code is losing relevance, what a cultural shift implies for brand permission, what consumers can't articulate about their own behavior - that's the territory this practice is built for.
Past Clients include:
I’m John. Nice to meet you.
I’m a Brooklyn-based cultural strategist decoding culture for brand and innovation leaders at Google, Diageo, Target, and others.
My career started in Consumer Research, and quickly moved to Cultural Insight and Strategic Foresight when there were important things consumers couldn't tell you directly. Twenty years later, that's still the most interesting part of the work.
I've built and led cultural insight practices at Flamingo, Kelton, LRW, and Material. Before going independent, I ran the North American Innovation and Future Spaces team at Diageo North America, and helped launch LedeWire, a pre-revenue media infrastructure start-up.
Over that time, I developed a proprietary Cultural Ecosystem Analysis framework that structures cultural inquiry across four layers, from deep behavioral drivers to sector-specific dynamics, giving brand teams a repeatable lens, not just a one-off read.
Ways to Work together
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I work as a specialist layer, going deeper on the cultural and symbolic dimension than standard qualitative research alone can reach. This usually means semiotic analysis, cultural landscape reports, and strategic foresight frameworks.
Typical engagement: $10–20K / 3–6 weeks
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Ongoing strategic and insights partnership for growth-stage companies building their thinking capability from the inside. I work as an embedded thought partner, present in the (Zoom) room where decisions get made, not dropping in with donuts and a deck.
Typical engagement: Monthly retainer or equity + fee
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Speaking engagements, cultural intelligence training, and workshop design for teams that want to build this capability in-house. From half-day sessions to long-term programs.
Typical engagement: Half-day to multi-session engagements