Famous for his intuitions, Albert Einstein reportedly stated, in a 1929 interview, that he believed imagination to be a more important aptitude than knowledge itself. Unwavering in his conviction, he was unequivocal: 'knowledge is limited, imagination encompasses the world.' Regrettably, in extreme circumstances, Culture — the greatest shareholder of imagination — is one of the first to be sacrificed. It is perhaps worth discovering at what cost. For brands, in particular. And, of course, for all of us.
Dividing my time between commercial brands — those that compete, relentlessly, for every millimetre of the supermarket shelf — and cultural institutions — those that live from an intimate complicity between stage and audience — has probably been one of the greatest privileges of my career. But also one of the most enlightening: the clash of perspectives led me to reinforce my conviction that a brand is stronger the better it can balance its financial health with a diligent human dimension. And to that end, Culture — that which is born of creative impulse and artistic urgency — is one of the best resources available.
However, when I look back today, I notice with curiosity that, although with acknowledged reluctance, the term brand — and the commercial dimension implicit in it — has settled more comfortably in the sphere of Culture than the potential of Culture has been recognised in commercial organisations. And more than a peculiarity of the world of supermarket brands, this relative indifference is, it seems to me, a reflection of a larger symptom: Culture is commonly understood as a secondary good, to be considered beyond urgencies and only when budgetary slack allows.
Now, in very broad terms, this logic ignores everything we know about our own evolution as a species. The particular creative capacity of the human being — which includes Einstein's imagination — was, perhaps, one of the great drivers behind the most significant leaps in cognitive and behavioural evolution that brought us here. And it is also creativity that allows us to imagine the world as it could be, not only as it is.
All of these propositions — and many more that I reluctantly leave out — converge in the manifestations we generically call Culture. It is true that the impacts that result from it are not as immediate, or as visible, as everything involving Health, for example. But to think that investing in Culture amounts to little more than paying artists an allowance is to ignore its importance as a driver of creativity. Not only for those who produce, but above all for those who consume. All the others — those who do not benefit directly — gain from what we might, by analogy, describe as an effect similar to herd immunity. This is precisely the promise of knowledge-based economies.
(...) to think that investing in Culture amounts to little more than paying artists an allowance is to ignore its importance as a driver of creativity. Not only for those who produce, but above all for those who consume.
For the world of brands, the relevance of this premise has more complex dimensions than a superficial reading might reveal. Evidently, creativity is the oxygen upon which countless dimensions of organisations depend: from innovation to communication. In this sense, Culture is not only a social dynamic to be safeguarded through indirect inspiration, but also a source of vital resources. A simple exercise — watching a television advertisement without sound — makes the argument obvious: it is generally the music that, without our noticing, opens the door to our emotions.
I confess, however, that disinvestment in Culture concerns me at a deeper level than this immediacy of its relationship with the regular activity of organisations. It only makes sense for brands to exist in a society that finds the strength of the collective in the celebration of the individual — or as we like to call them, Democracies. In their most varied manifestations, Culture is, from production to consumption, an expression of this desired individual intellectual independence (it is no coincidence that one of the most transversal traits of authoritarian regimes is, precisely, the control of artistic production). In an era in which we are increasingly tempted to delegate our autonomy to all manner of algorithms that facilitate choices, Culture may well be one of the last instigators of the critical thinking that democracy so sorely needs. And if this notion seems a purely argumentative exercise, let us recall, for example, the influence of data and content manipulation in the infamous 2016 election of Donald Trump.
In market dynamics, on the other hand, the consequences seem even more evident, though obscured both by the illusion that each brand nurtures regarding its own exceptionality, and by the promise of democratisation that the Internet fixed in the consumer. Yet the truth is that the technological dominance of data and algorithms will tend to bend the projects of many organisations to the intentions of few. The more Amazon dominates the sale of books, the less autonomy each independent publisher has, and so on. The automation of public thought will benefit those who secure the greatest quantity of data, not necessarily those with the best ideas. And for the vast majority of brands, as for the majority of consumers, that is very bad news indeed. Culture is not, for these and other related ills, an immediate solution. But it is, without doubt, a crucial blocking force.
It is sensible to divide society by sectors and prioritise the most urgent. What is senseless is to believe that these sectors exist independently of one another. Einstein, as is well known, played the violin to stimulate thought. The study later made of his brain revealed that, contrary to what one might suppose, he did not have a greater number of neurons than expected. What he did have was far more connections between them. It is an attractive argument in favour of the intrinsic value of art for each of us. But it is, perhaps, the perfect metaphor to represent the relevance of Culture beyond Culture itself.
Publication note
Text originally published in the online edition of Briefing, in a series of articles entitled Marcas em Tempo de Guerra (Brands in a Time of War) which, set against the atypical circumstances into which Covid-19 had thrown the world, proposed to look at and reflect on the positive potential of brands in society. The title of the series is, as a tribute, an appropriation of the title of the programme Dançar em Tempo de Guerra (Dancing in a Time of War), by the Companhia Nacional de Bailado (National Ballet of Portugal), itself a circumstantial victim of Covid-19.
Bibliography
Caldas, A. C. (2017). Criatividade: A Função Cerebral Improvável. Lisboa: Universidade Católica Editora.
Campos, J. (2019). Marca Positiva. Lisboa: Influência.