It’s the start of the year, which usually puts me into two modes at the same time.
On the one hand, I’m paying attention to what the markets are signalling. Where people are spending, where they’re pulling back, and what that says about confidence, pressure, and priorities.
On the other hand, I’m thinking more broadly about culture. What’s shifting beneath the surface, and why certain brands and voices feel like they’re cutting through while others feel increasingly out of touch.
In that spirit, I’ve started reading Marcus Collins’ For the Culture. Not casually, but intentionally. From a marketer’s point of view, I want to better understand what we really mean when we talk about culture, because lately so many conversations keep circling the same themes: culture, relatability, aspiration, relevance.
And the more I read, the clearer one thing becomes. The move away from polished aspiration toward relatability isn’t a trend. It’s a cultural correction.
When did aspiration stop doing the heavy lifting?
Aspiration used to work because people believed the gap between their lives and the ideal was bridgeable. The dream felt within reach.
Right now, that context has changed. People are more financially cautious, more emotionally aware, and far more conscious of how images and narratives are constructed. They know what’s filtered, sponsored, staged, and edited.
So when brands show up with perfect visuals and no acknowledgement of reality, it doesn’t inspire. It disconnects.
Collins reinforces that people don’t adopt brands because they’re objectively better, but because they align with identity and worldview
When aspirational messaging ignores lived experiences, it breaks that alignment. And once that happens, trust is the first thing to go.
Aspiration didn’t disappear. It just stopped working on its own.
Brands that understand the codes
What’s interesting is that the brands winning right now haven’t chosen between aspiration or relatability. They’ve figured out how to do both, but on their own cultural terms.
A global example is Telfar.
Telfar is deeply entrenched in New York culture, not as an aesthetic, but as a lived reality. The brand didn’t arrive trying to impress the fashion industry. It built itself alongside a community that already understood it. It speaks in codes its audience recognises because it comes from the same place.
That’s why it manages to be both aspirational and relatable at the same time. The ambition is clear, but it’s not exclusionary. Access, ownership, and community sit at the centre of the brand. And because that alignment is real, recognition followed naturally. When artists like Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, and Teyana Taylor support the brand, it doesn’t feel transactional. It feels cultural.
That’s what happens when you don’t miss the codes.
Closer to home, you see the same instinct with Bathu.
Bathu didn’t show up, positioning itself as luxury or underground cool. It showed up grounded in everyday South African life. The pricing, the language, the references, even the pace of growth felt familiar. Not diluted, just recognisable.
What Bathu gets right is that it builds aspiration through relatability. Owning a pair isn’t about flexing status; it’s about pride, proximity, and shared experience. You see the brand everywhere because it fits into real lives, not curated ones.
This is exactly what Collins talks about when he explains that brands grow when they become symbols of identity, not just products
People don’t feel sold a fantasy. They feel included in something that understands them.
Audiences today are paying attention to how brands show up, not just that they show up. They’re gravitating towards brands that speak in language that feels familiar, that are willing to show the process and not only the polished outcome, and that remain consistent rather than jumping from trend to trend. There’s a growing appreciation for brands that understand the cultural moment they’re operating in and respond to it with awareness, not urgency. At the same time, there’s very little patience for brands that only perform relatability when it suits them, borrow cultural language without understanding its meaning, or mistake visibility for relevance. In a landscape this crowded, people are quick to sense when something feels forced, and even quicker to disengage.
Collins is clear on this. Culture moves predictably when you understand it, and brutally when you don’t.
Why does it matter?
At the start of the year, when brands are planning, forecasting, and repositioning, this shift matters.
Attention is easy to chase. Relevance is harder to earn. And relevance no longer comes from looking aspirational alone. It comes from being culturally in tune.
Relatability hasn’t replaced aspiration. It has reframed it.
Today, the most aspirational thing a brand can be is human: I see you, seeing me with all that I am.
By Maishe Mashigo
