Those in the SME challenger brand space often don’t have the luxury of big budgets. This, coupled with an increasingly saturated media landscape, is making it tougher for brands to cut through the noise. That’s what makes leaning into culturally relevant moments a brilliant and potentially low-cost opportunity for brand exposure.

To do this, you must ensure you have an in-depth understanding of your target audience, and avoid trying to be all things to everyone. Which artists do your consumers listen to? Where do they spend their time? What other brands do they talk about? This will start to give you some clues as to some of the culturally relevant moments that may start to appear in your calendar, or help you spot newer ones.

Start by mapping out your calendar – and no, not just the annual greetings card Mother’s Day and Valentine’s moments. Culturally relevant moments don’t happen every year, and you often won’t know about them very far in advance (if at all) but identify what you can. It’s important not to ‘over-plan’ and carve out time and resources to jump on moments that have the potential to cut through. So often companies are so busy executing their plans that they are too busy to have a say in those moments that really matter.

What do these culturally relevant moments look like? The truth is, they happen every week, but some are bigger than others. You’ll need to have been hiding under a rock to have missed Taylor Swift coming to the UK. She reportedly added £1bn to the economy – not to mention it was all anyone could talk about on social media throughout most of June. Caleño was out in force, sampling our ‘Ready to Party’ alcohol-free cocktail cans with Taylor fans, and hosting bracelet-making classes in Revolution bars. Nice Wines also jumped on this moment, planting a Travis Kelce lookalike in a Sainsbury’s store with a can of wine in hand. Swifties went wild online!

If played into correctly, moments like this – the Barbie movie, or the Oscars – have the potential to catapult your brand to stardom, or at the very least get people searching for it. Although these moments don’t necessarily last long, they can be an incredibly powerful tool alongside other low-cost items in your toolbox, such as PR, organic social and events.

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