John Wise
Brooklyn, New York
Overview
Pretty much every brand is trying to win in 'culture', but most aren't very good at it. The reason is simple: there are many definitions of 'culture' out there, all of them valid but none capturing the real reality. Culture rarely fits into the narrowly prescribed behaviors that businesses tend to care about. It's messy, contradictory, and filled with things that are nearly impossible to measure. It's hard to find someone who can look at what's shifting in your category, your consumer's world, and the wider culture, and tell you what it actually means for your brand. I'm a cultural strategi
About
Pretty much every brand is trying to win in 'culture', but most aren't very good at it. The reason is simple: there are many definitions of 'culture' out there, all of them valid but none capturing the real reality. Culture rarely fits into the narrowly prescribed behaviors that businesses tend to care about. It's messy, contradictory, and filled with things that are nearly impossible to measure. It's hard to find someone who can look at what's shifting in your category, your consumer's world, and the wider culture, and tell you what it actually means for your brand. I'm a cultural strategist with 20 years decoding culture for brand and strategy leaders at Google, Diageo, Nike, LEGO, Coca-Cola, Sephora, and others. My background is in semiotics and cultural anthropology, but I've spent my career translating that into decisions: positioning strategies, innovation springboards, foresight frameworks, and creative platforms that translate the conceptual into the actual. To get ahead of changing times, I’m building AI into various workflows, using it to source cultural material at scale, stress-test strategies through adversarial collaboration, and accelerate early-stage scenario development work. So far, it’s been a game-changer in terms of capacity and breadth of scanning. I work in three ways: - Custom Insights: Semiotic analysis, cultural landscape work, and strategic foresight for research agencies and brand teams with a brief that needs a senior cultural brain. Typical engagement: $10–20K over 3–4 weeks. - Fractional Strategy Leadership: Embedded strategic and insights partnership for growth-stage companies building their thinking capability from the inside. - Learning & Development: Speaking, cultural intelligence training, and workshop design for teams that want to seed this capability in-house. If you're a senior strategist, insights leader, or founder working on a problem that sits just outside what standard research can answer, I’d love to hear about it. Based in Brooklyn. Rescue pitsky dad. Diner Enthusiast.