In what appears to be an industry first, earlier this month Taco Bell announced it was bringing on a culture agency of record, Los Angeles-based Cashmere, to work alongside the Yum Brands chain’s creative agency Deutsch LA and PR shop Edelman. Given the newness of the relationship, the scope of Cashmere’s duties and whether it will impact work done by the other agencies at this point is unclear. But it does beg the question: What is a culture agency, anyway?

Just as a changing media landscape gave rise to digital shops more than two decades ago, culture agencies are a response to an agency ecosystem that too often finds itself behind the times, whether that’s a new social media craze or consumer demands that their favorite companies take a stand on racial justice issues.

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“Culture is knowing what is going to trend before it trends and is the undercurrent that moves people and society forward,” says Taco Bell CEO Mark King. “It’s what sets the standard, and it’s run by the new general market.” King is already using lingo coined by his new agency: "Multicultural is the new general market."

"You have to find out what's important to your audience. It could be Black Lives Matter. In fact, it probably is, if they’re younger. It could be Stop Asian Hate. It could be how Black creatives are getting treated on an TikTok,” says Ryan Ford, president and chief creative officer at Cashmere. “And it's not just important to Black people. Those things are important to culture. Rewind to last summer, we saw those protests in the streets. That wasn’t just a bunch of Black people out there. That was everybody, young people especially.”

Currently, there are only a handful of self-described “culture agencies” (like most industry appellations, it’s voluntary), but more and more shops are building out internal divisions for cultural insights or include “culture-forward” offerings in their pitches to clients. Definitions of what that means, of course, vary widely.

“Our job as a culturally-focused agency is to connect the dots that move too fast for others to connect,” says Evan Horowitz, CEO of Movers+Shakers, a New York-based shop with a dedicated “Culture Squad” that looks for timely ways to insert clients into cultural conversations. It specializes in TikTok campaigns for brands including Amazon, e.l.f. Cosmetics and Unilever.

“Cultural trends move at different speeds. All agencies see the long-term trends, for example, the different behaviors of Gen Z vs. millennials. Only a few agencies see the hyper-short trends, for example, what Gen Z fitness enthusiasts are talking about today vs. yesterday,” Horowitz adds.

Operating at speed is of particular importance to culture agencies, because of how quickly conversations shift. Ryan Reynolds’ agency Maximum Effort bases its campaigns almost entirely on pop-culture insights, and on a recent podcast with Majority founder Omid Farhang, he attributed its success to quick turnaround on ideas.

Come as you are
But there is an element of authenticity that is perhaps even more important. The work that comes out of a culture agency benefits from actually being tied to a real, lasting culture—Black Twitter, the drag scene, underground fashion—not just fleeting bubbles of virality. This makes the shops more akin to multicultural agencies, which arose in the 1960s to create work by and for people of color and other underserved groups.

“We can't get to great work with those who are not willing to extend the table or change some of the guests at the table. And some of these new agencies are doing that,” says Lindsey Slaby, founder of brand strategy consultancy Sunday Dinner. “Thus a brand like Taco Bell is going to pull up and join.”

Unlike digital, experiential or media agencies, which are defined by a vertical, both culture and multicultural agencies are defined by the people and ideas they represent. After all, Deutsch LA's work for Taco Bell has tapped into cultural phenomena like NFTs and manga, but the brand feels there's something a new agency can add.

Indeed, just as some digital agencies morphed into what would come to be called social media agencies, some multicultural shops—including Cashmere—have turned their efforts and insights to the pursuit of those general market eyeballs Taco Bell’s King speaks of.

“While all agencies should be culturally attuned, not every agency is culturally driven. That’s the difference,” says Luis Montero, CEO of The Community, another agency that started out as a multicultural shop before taking on more general market clients. “Oftentimes those agencies are the ones born out of a more multicultural-focused space. It’s just a different sensibility, one that’s quickly becoming the norm.”

And as recent brand campaigns attest, in America there can be no honest conversation about culture without acknowledging Black culture, its outsized impact on global culture as a whole and the cultural appropriation that often leaves creators shut out of trends they began in the first place.

Sephora’s “Black Beauty is Beauty” called out cut creases, baby hairs and laid edges as mainstream beauty trends that began as Black innovation. Translation’s award-winning “You Love Me” for Beats by Dre flashed a mirror in the face of pop-cultural hypocrisy.

“Culture is available by invite only, and every brand yearns for one even though most brands are an aspirational ‘plus one’ to culture at best,” says Coltrane Curtis, founder and managing partner at Team Epiphany, a consumer marketing and multicultural shop in New York City. “Multicultural marketing equals culture. There is no ‘culture’ marketing without multicultural.”

Heal thyself
As brands begin to realize this, they’re also exploring the opportunities a new outlook presents. “Taco Bell is a brand that celebrates being different, from our food to our people,” King says. “We’re an inclusive brand that believes that our diverse culture makes us stronger and more interesting. We are looking for ways to bring this to life with Cashmere.”

That increased emphasis on inclusivity can play out in more places than just ad campaigns. Just as the pandemic and the resurgence of support for Black Lives Matter has pushed many Americans to begin questioning their own values and the way they live up to them, so too are brands and the people who work at them, according to Ford. And much like multicultural agencies, which can advise brands on diversifying supply chains and vendor lists in addition to creative departments and onscreen talent, a proper culture agency can help a client get their house in order.

“In the last year-and-a-half, we started saying, ‘Am I doing enough? Do I know where culture's at? Where do you stand on this?’” Ford says. “What we proposed to Taco Bell is to think about what's the cultural strategy of where your brand shows up and how they show up. How does everything level up to that?”

That means examining the brand’s media spend and creative and experiential teams, he adds, but also human resources, recruiting, retention and the makeup of the workforce.

“This is a revolution not in media, but in culture, alongside a revolution in media,” Ford says. “This is a transformational moment. So therefore the needs of brands, the needs of our clients change and have changed rather quickly. And they want to do something that's right and resonating.”

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