Why if you’re talking about ROI you’re not talking about culture
I have been giving this quite a bit of thought over the last few years since I live firmly in the “culture space”. As the curator of a global conference, I spend most of my time attempting to understand the role that culture plays in our collective world. My attempt to do goes hand in hand with my accepting that the definition of culture stands on constantly shifting ground. Culture can mean the art and creativity of a particular community or the social conventions of an organization as well as the larger societal behavioral trends. Each of these, and more, can be relevant when discussing culture. But for simplicity, I am going to focus on culture as defined as the groundswell of music, media, and art forms that people share in a particular place or time. Institutional players, often in the form of brands (notably but not exclusively CPGs), look to gain entry into the culture space, as they believe, rightly so, it will drive consumer loyalty and engagement. Facing a wide range of options, ROI (Return on Investment) is the chosen metric most often used to assign value to a potential project. The reliance on ROI, however, to determine the value of a project is commonplace and I would argue has no place in a conversation about culture.
In my prior life, I spent years working for Goldman, Sachs. I attended business school with a focus on Finance. I left the world of Wall Street, a world filled with all sorts of arcane financial measurement including ROI, only to find myself right back in the same type of conversation in the culture space. When ROI is mentioned more frequently in a music conversation than it is on a trading desk we have a problem. ROI can be a useful measure when comparing one investment alternative (or opportunity) to another but I find it less effective when measuring cultural impact. Ultimately, this is what makes culture so damn frustrating. We intrinsically know culture is important to us but we can’t quite put a finger on why. Brands know they must be in the culture space but very rarely know how to do so effectively. Hence the reliance on co-opting financial measurements for use in a space that is at its most basic human and emotional. Its very nature defies the type of measurement that financial models rely on. So why is ROI thrown about so frequently? The answer is because it’s easy and convenient. If you can assign a measurement (even a flawed one) to a variable it makes your decision making process somewhat justifiable. The dirty secret about ROI, whether in a financial setting or not, is that it is only as good as the inputs that make up the ratio. Additionally one can modify ROI to suit your specific purposes, it all depends on what is included as return and costs. So a measurement that is held up as unassailable it actually quite subjective. Is this the most effective way we have to gauge impact for something as vital as understanding culture and how we interact with it?
Culture is messy, hit & miss, alluring and intoxicating. Culture drives our conversations and often times our passions. It encompasses music, film, visual arts, fashion and beyond. It’s easy to understand why brands would want to play a role in these multiple worlds. What is the best way to accomplish that without being perceived as an interloper? That remains the central debate but whatever the answer I know it does not involve dissecting cultural opportunities with an arbitrary method like ROI.
The Deep Dive
- Episode 263: The Future That Was w/ Dubra Mitra June 18, 2026Philip welcomes Dubra Mitra, scholar and author of The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism. In their conversation they discuss the various global women collectives that organized their writing, publishing and intelligence gathering in the face of post-colonialism and rising authoritarianism and the critical lessons we can draw from their […]
- Episode 262: How Not to Save the World w/ Anthea Lawson June 5, 2026Philip welcomes Anthea Lawson, author How Not to Save the World: Doing Good Without Annoying Everyone. In their conversation they tackle the state of progressive politics and whether it is possible to change someone’s mind across cultural and political beliefs. The Drop – The segment of the show where Philip and his guest share tasty […]
- Episode 261: Ethics and Culture of AI w/ Clara Hawking May 29, 2026Philip welcomes AI expert Clara Hawking to the show. In their conversation, they discuss the current cultural, regulatory and ethical journey of artificial intelligence and what is inevitable and what isn’t. The Drop – The segment of the show where Philip and his guest share tasty morsels of intellectual goodness and creative musings. Philip’s Drop: […]
- Episode 260: Unvaccinated Under God w/ Kira Ganga Kieffer May 21, 2026Philip welcomes Kira Ganga Kieffer, author of Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vacccine Hesitancy in Modern America to the show. In their conversation, they trace the origins of what is popularly known as the “anti-vaxx” movement and how the religious right has influenced its trajectory. The Drop – The segment of the show where Philip […]
- Episode 259: Protest History of the United States w/ Gloria Browne-Marshall May 14, 2026Philip welcomes scholar/author and Emmy Awarrd winner Gloria Browne-Marshall to The Deep Dive to discuss her latest book A Protest History of the United States. In their conversation, they trace the social and political structure of the United States through the lens of protest movements. The Drop – The segment of the show where Philip […]
- Episode 258: Deficit Thinking & Feminist Economics w/ Emma Holten May 7, 2026Philip welcomes Emma Holten, author of Deficit: How Feminist Economics Can Change the World. In their conversation, they discuss how the “deficit’ frame impacts how the economy thinks about women’s labor and how feminist economics can create lasting changes in the world. The Drop – The segment of the show where Philip and his guest […]
- Episode 257: Redesigning Thinking & Service Design w/ Clive Grinyer April 29, 2026Philip welcomes Clive Grinyer, author of Redesigning Thinking: How Service Design is Solving Our 21st Century Challenges. In their conversation they reflect on how thinking itself can be framed as a design issue, how we build care into our processes and what constitutes “doing the right thing?” The Drop – The segment of the show […]
- Episode 256: The Great Resistance w/ Carrie Gibson April 22, 2026Philip welcomes Carrie Gibson, author of The Great Resistance: The 400 Year Fight to End Slavery in the Americas. In their conversation they trace how the history of resistance has been purposely obscured and how the lessons from those ancestorial responses to slavery and oppression are relevant today. The Drop – The segment of the […]
- Episode 255: The Business of Meaning w/ Peter Spear April 16, 2026Philip welcomes. Peter Spear, host and curator of the newsletter and podcast That Business of Meaning to the show. In their conversation, they discuss all things culture and how the current marketing and media landscape make sense of the world around it. The Drop – The segment of the show where Philip and his guest […]
- Episode 254: Bernie Goetz, Reagan and the Rebirth of White Rage w/ Heather Ann Thompson April 2, 2026Philip welcomes Heather Ann Thompson author of Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, The Bernie Goetz Shootings and the Rebirth of White Rage to the show. In their conversation they discuss how the pivotal Bernie Goetz shooting of four innocent Black teens alongside the conservative austerity and race baiting of the Reagan Presidency set the […]