Keeping Up With The Speed of Culture
Qulture Founder and CEO Quynh Mai on the evolution of modern-day advertising, the rise of the social media creator, and key social media tactics for connecting brands with their audiences.
Quynh Mai is the Founder & CEO of Qulture, a digital creative agency known for equipping its clients, including global brands Sephora, Nike, H&M, Lululemon, Prada Beauty, Google, COTY Group, Ferrari, and Uniqlo, to embrace the near future.
As a female founder, Quynh has established a reputation as an innovative thought leader on the cutting edge of online culture. Named a “40 over 40 Digital Innovator" by Campaign US, Quynh excels at detecting critical indicators of when an upcoming change or emerging tech has significant consequences for culture and commerce. The Continuum recently caught up with Quynh to discuss all things social media, growing up in Silicon Valley, the demise of X, gaming, AI, and just how brands can excel in the ever-changing world of social media.
You got into the emerging tech world at a really young age. Can you tell us how that happened?
I grew up in Silicon Valley when there were still apple orchards. All the big tech companies were just being built when I was in middle school and high school. They used us as the petri dishes for their products and marketing experiments. I caught the tech bug early on and really understood that world.
I started my own tech company back in 2000. It's hard to remember what the internet was like 20-odd years ago, but at the time, if you wanted to open a JPEG, it would take forever, and your computer would probably crash. What we did would be lumped under cloud services today, but the cloud didn't exist yet. Basically, artists, photographers, and anyone else could create a visual portfolio that was saved remotely and then could just send a URL link when they wanted to share it.
I'd worked in the visual realm already and saw this as an opening. We had incredible investors and great engineers from MIT Media Lab. The product worked well, and we got a lot of clients. In those days, though, technology moved really slowly. It's not like today, where the latest software or platform is constantly changing. You had the same product for at least a year or two. After a couple of years, I got bored and sold my shares in the company.
And you went into advertising. Can you tell us about that transition?
I ended up at an agency called Lippman, which was known for rebranding Burberry and doing the SmartWater campaign with Jennifer Aniston. When I first started, I was working with Rosemary Bravo who was the CEO of Burberry. She'd been the President of Saks and was well-known in the fashion industry. Then Angela Ahrendts took over. She later left to become the head of retail for Apple, but she was the one who said to me, "You know, my teenagers are online all the time. They don't look at magazines. What's our digital plan?" This was around 2006 when digital existed for CPG brands, but premium brands weren't there yet. She challenged me to come up with a digital plan for Burberry. That really opened my eyes.
I begged my boss to let me start a digital department. I told him that this was happening and we needed to be ahead of it. He told me I could do it, and he'd give me one employee. I knew I couldn't build a digital practice with one employee, so I took the leap and started my own company.
Tell us about your company.
It's called Qulture with a Q. It's a digital strategy and marketing agency. We're known for our understanding of culture and tech. We'll see trends and innovation; Gen Z is our sweet spot. One of the first jobs I got was from Diane Von Furstenberg, who became one of my mentors. I was explaining digital to her, and she said, "I don't really know what you're talking about, but I believe in women, and I believe in entrepreneurship. I'll give you a project." It helped to have her name and her endorsement. Now, we work with great brands and have a lot of global clients like L'Oréal, Ferrari, Jaguar, and Google.
Our tagline is "helping brands enter the near future." That's what our mandate is about. The near future is a very specific place. If it's happening now and you're not doing it, you're too late. It's over. If you're too early, you're irrelevant because nobody's with you. Crypto and NFTs are great examples of that; they happened too early. People weren't there yet. Nobody, other than the media and a select group of crypto collectors, really cared.
The sweet spot is what's about to happen. We're always reading the tea leaves, and we have a newsletter that explains what we think is next so brands are ready. Too many brands wait until the change happens and then struggle to keep up.
“The near future is a very specific place. If it's happening now and you're not doing it, you're too late. It's over. If you're too early, you're irrelevant because nobody's with you.”
You mentioned DVF. What was that first job that you did for her?
This sounds so dated, but it was at a blogger initiative with AOL. This was in 2010. Nobody was commissioning bloggers to make content, but the only platforms to release content on were these blogs and AOL.
It's actually funny; we've almost come full circle. There was a time when you'd hire a blogger and pay them for specific content, but you were really paying them for distribution because, other than display ads on websites, brands didn't have channels to engage with an audience. Now, brands have ways to distribute content, but they still need creators.
Creators are really the media rainmakers of culture, whether it's Mr. Beast or a random person on TikTok who creates a meme that goes viral.
That evolution from blogger to influencer to creator is fascinating. What do you think sparked it, and what does it mean?
I think it was driven by TikTok. It's a super app. People don't understand how TikTok is swallowing up the internet. It's taking away search from Google. It's taking away shopping from Amazon. It's taking away entertainment from traditional TV and streaming. It's taking over the news. I think even TikTok downplays its power, but all of those sites are losing their market share, especially among youth. Most young people get their news on TikTok. Most young people will shop hashtags on TikTok. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X) have all failed to evolve, and it shows.
The power is now with the creator; they're the entertainers now, and they're creating the media. This means that anyone has a chance to go viral. Obviously, it's tough, but it's possible because algorithms are based on engagement and not on follower count. The algorithms are tipped off when something starts bubbling up, and people start engaging in their content. The algorithm says, "Oh, this is trendy," and it starts pushing it out to other users.
A recent issue of your newsletter was about what brands should be doing in social media in 2024.
Well, the winners right now are definitely YouTube and TikTok. These are creative outlets and have become outlets for people to feel connected to a community of like-minded individuals. If you're into music, cooking, wellness and health, or perimenopause, you know there are creators for you or an audience for your content. These two platforms are where you go to see what's happening, and brands must be where people are.
Instagram is also still important because it's turned into a brand storefront. It's where people go to check out what a brand really looks like. They go to Instagram to follow celebrities and to look at brands in lieu of the corporate website.
Facebook is the place to market to Gen X and Baby Boomers. And X is a mess.
“If I had any advice for marketers today, it would be to figure out how to use AI as your partner. It can't do what you do, but it can help.”
What has the demise of X meant for brands?
I think they're still working on that. Brands were relying on Twitter (now X) because they were able to hop on to a trend daily and be part of a cultural conversation that was happening in the moment. They didn't have to create the trend to be part of it.
During the Superbowl, during the Oscars, and during every major event that happened in the world, the conversation was there. Twitter was the world's water cooler, so missing that is a shame. Now, the water cooler moment is happening on TikTok, which comes in and out so fast. The average trend lasts three to five days.
I think brands have to stop diminishing their value. I remember they did this in the beginning of Instagram. Brands dismissed it as all young people and not important, but those kids make pop culture, and all of us are influenced by it even if we don't realize it.
How can brands and advertisers keep up with the speed of culture?
Have a clear vision of what your brand stands for and how you want to participate in the world through social media. Then hire people who are really good at their job and let them do their job. Brands can't participate in the daily conversation if they're still getting three rounds of approval on every piece of copy. There's legitimacy to that traditional method of working, but if you want to be culturally relevant, you must move at the speed of culture. You need to have people around you who you trust enough to speak for your brand.
Nike has been having a hard time being culturally relevant these last few years because it is such a controlled brand that it's not capable of moving as fast as some of its competitors, especially the start-ups of the world. If something happens, these smaller companies are on it immediately and become part of the conversation.
Brands have to rethink social media. Marketers still see it as a sales channel or as organic PR. They're not understanding that the world is using social media for search, testimonials, reviews, trend spotting, and connection to celebrity culture. Brands should look at it as the frontlines of their business—the first impression—like a cashier would be in a traditional store.
You also think brands should be using AI to help them with social media. Why?
You need speed and quantity in social. Most brands have hit a wall when it comes to staffing and don't have the budget to have a large team just managing social media. Marketers should be using AI as a partner to help scale.
You can use AI to spot the trends quickly. You can use AI to change your copy posts platform-by-platform because it needs to be a little different. You can use AI for community management by having it help you respond to people who reach out to the brand.
AI is in its nascent stages. It's still easy for me and likely many others to see what was made by AI, but it will get better. It's only been out for public use a year and a half with ChatGPT. As brands and creatives start learning how to use AI, the results will look less like something out of Narnia.
If I had any advice for marketers today, it would be to figure out how to use AI as your partner. It can't do what you do, but it can help. We still need human intervention to make it look and sound real. I think we'll be in that state for a while because Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials will be in charge for the next 30 years, and we will continue to want human guardrails on AI. Think of it like having an assistant who can get you 70% there; you'll just have to follow up and fine-tune.
“The biggest frustration I see from Gen Z, or even young millennials, is that they don't have enough say in their jobs to make a difference.”
You also think brands are ignoring immersive worlds like gaming because Gen-X and Boomers are still in charge. Why should brands be in gaming, and how can they make it work if they don't understand that world?
The metaverse never became what people hoped it would in terms of an immersive experience, but gaming is bigger than Hollywood and music combined right now. Fortnite did a concert with Eminem, and you (or I guess your avatar) had to stand in line to get tickets. It basically crashed the internet because the servers couldn't manage the overload of people waiting for a virtual concert. Brands have to find a way to participate in that world because that's where all the eyeballs are. And it's not just men; young women are gaming in droves.
Hiring younger people who understand it is a good start, but leaders must have the mindset that they are your collaborators, not just junior staff, to execute your vision. The biggest frustration I see from Gen Z, or even young millennials, is that they don't have enough say in their jobs to make a difference. I mean, so many people leave jobs because they feel they can't make an impact. Big brands sometimes make a Gen Z committee, like a youth group, but that group lacks the power for budgeting, spending, or contacting. This doesn't help.
My attitude is that I work for my team; they don't work for me. I am here to make sure that their ideas and concepts get sold, bridging the gap between what they feel is right and what the clients (often also Gen-X or Boomers) want. I'm the bridge between a CMO, a senior executive, and this incredible group of young people who live and breathe culture.
Everyone is talking about streaming these days, but you seem less excited about it. Why?
The changes coming to streaming are an opportunity for commercials, but I worry that our industry will go there because that is still our comfort zone. We know how to make the 30-second spot. But streaming is starting to erode for young people; they're even watching films on YouTube. We can create 30-second spots and place them wherever we can still buy targeted ads, but it's really just kicking the can down the road. It's very hard for our industry to truly adapt, but it must.
February 20, 2024
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