You’ve put in the work. The strategy is sound, the team is talented, and the message is clear. But somewhere between intention and action, something gets lost. People aren’t moving the way you need them to. The hard truth? Most leaders and marketers are speaking at people rather than into the forces that actually drive their behavior. We’ve been so focused on what we’re selling that we’ve forgotten to understand why people buy, follow, join, or believe in anything at all. In a world overflowing with content, noise, and constant competition for attention, the old levers of influence are losing their grip, and the gap between effort and impact has never felt wider.
In his best-selling book, For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be, award-winning marketer and University of Michigan professor Marcus Collins offers a street-tested, academically grounded framework for understanding the invisible forces that shape what we buy, what we do, and who we want to be. Drawing on a century’s worth of data and hard-won experience – from spearheading digital strategy for Beyoncé to launching the Brooklyn Nets to driving iconic campaigns for Apple, Nike, McDonald’s, and Google – Collins reveals the cheat codes that the world’s most influential brands use to spark collective action. What emerges is a genuinely different way of thinking about influence, one that works whether you’re running a campaign, leading a team, or trying to build something that lasts.
Practical Tools and Strategies You’ll Gain
- Identify the Cheat Codes: Leverage the cultural strategies used by iconic brands like Apple and Nike to build a high-performance identity where team members are aligned by shared beliefs and values.
- Influence Behavior at Scale: Move beyond traditional management and marketing methods by understanding the underlying forces that make employees and customers tick.
- Architect Belonging: Transition from a manager to a cultural architect, designing an environment where people don’t just work, they belong to something bigger than themselves.
Ideal Participants for This Conversation
- Leaders who want to move beyond transactional management and build organizations where shared culture drives performance, loyalty, and lasting impact.
- Aspiring leaders who are ready to understand the deeper forces shaping their teams and customers, so they can develop the influence needed to inspire real, collective action.
- Marketing professionals who are tired of campaigns that perform but don’t resonate, and are ready to build the kind of cultural fluency that creates lasting brand impact.
Join Marcus Collins to decode the cultural forces driving human behavior and unlock a new level of influence that turns followers into true believers.
About the Author
Marcus Collins is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator with one foot in the world of practice—formerly serving as Chief Strategy Officer at Wieden+Kennedy, New York—and one foot in the world of academia—as a professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. His deep understanding of culture has enabled him to bridge the academic-practitioner gap for blue-chip brands and startups alike. He is an inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement and the recipient of the 2023 Thinkers50’s Radar Distinguished Achievement Award for the idea most likely to shape the future of business management. His strategies and creative contributions have led to the launch and success of campaigns for Fortune 500 brands like McDonald’s and Google.
Before his advertising tenure, Marcus began his career in music and technology with a startup he co-founded, then worked on iTunes + Nike sports music initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé. His work centers squarely on the impact and influence of culture on human behavior. His best-selling book, For The Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be, examines the influence of culture on consumption and unpacks how everyone, from marketers to activists, can leverage culture to get people to take action. Throughout the book, he draws on literature, case studies, his work with brands, and academic data to illustrate the “whys” and the “hows,” empowering readers to successfully apply these learnings in their own pursuits.
Marcus holds a doctorate in marketing from Temple University, where he studied cultural contagion and meaning-making. He received an MBA with an emphasis on strategic brand marketing from the University of Michigan, where he also earned his undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering. He is a Forbes columnist and a trusted voice among CMOs and business leaders. But most importantly, he is a proud Detroit native, a devoted husband, and a loving father to Georgia and Ivy.
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