Dr. Francesca Sobande is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain, Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19, and Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture. She is a writer and reader in digital media studies, and her areas of expertise include popular and meme culture, Black media and visual culture, feminism and consumer culture, and brand responses to injustices and crises. Dr. Sobande’s research has been published in international journals, including Cultural Studies, Marketing Theory, Journal of Consumer Research, and European Journal of Marketing.

Matt Klein is a cultural theorist, cyberpsychologist, and marketing strategist, analysing social shifts and the psychosocial implications of our technology. Working alongside brands, TV producers, non-profits, and government agencies, Klein is a trusted source in identifying cultural change and developing future-proofed business strategies. As an award-winning writer and frequent commenter, his observations have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Forbes, WARC, The Verge, CNBC, and Adweek.

With 52 million likes and 2.4 million followers on TikTok, Grace Wells posts commercial-style videos of random objects. She has gone on to have her own Amazon page selling film equipment, a one-to-one course on product videoing, and a successful YouTube channel.

Rebecca Smith is the Head of Toolkit at Canvas8. With a background in psychology, she has worked with global clients such as Google, Nike, and Mars, exploring everything from what people want from a fake tan to Gen Z’s relationship with social media. Outside of work, you’ll find her binge-watching reality TV, listening to hyperpop, or with her nose buried in a fantasy novel.

Alex Strang is a senior insight editor at Canvas8 who used to be in a punk band that was signed, shaped, and spat out. He enjoys using his experience of being the product to help brands understand how to sell theirs. After studying philosophy and critical theory, he found his feet in the market research world and has been over-analysing consumer behaviour ever since, including his own. He can usually be found playing board games, watching Seinfeld, or trying too hard to make his daughter laugh.