With so much going on, it’s hard to keep track of endless shifts in relevance and to make sense of whether something truly is era-defining. Our Best of Insights awards recognises 20 products, people and campaigns that broke through and mattered – and analyses how they did it.
Looksmaxxing, smellmaxxing, the Willy Wonka experience, cucumber guy, Who TF Did I Marry, Chicken Shop Date romance, ‘Man in Finance’, coconut trees, rat snacking, and Mormon reality TV… who won culture in 2024?
What we’ve seen emerge and solidify in the last year is the power of capital-driven cultural products. These are your big budget, nostalgia-baiting, tentpole names releases like Wicked, Beetlejuice, and Taylor’s Eras tour. They don’t necessarily represent the zeitgeist in and of themselves, but they are big, stable products that are presented in the cultural landscape.
Meanwhile, you have what we're calling Method culture – a constant grassroots, bottom-up culture where people are creating and interpreting everything around them; they're sharing these experiences and inviting others to participate in them. It’s a cultural practice of creation and sharing that fuels the boom of Romantasy and makes Stanley Quenchers go viral.
In 2024, what what we’re seeing is that the zeitgeist is really captured when you understand and play with the relationship between the 'Mega' and the 'Method': when you build in a cultural practice to your cultural product.
How can you become a zeitgeist-capturer in the year ahead? Download our Best of Insights 2024 to find out.