Lucinda Bounsall, Freelance Strategy Director
💭 Thoughts on the art of being intentional, The Sociology of Business, and women who are starting their own agencies.
Lucinda Bounsall is a London-based freelance brand and cultural strategist with over 15 years of experience in digital communications spanning fashion, lifestyle and FMCG. Lucinda began her career in luxury fashion, working across social and editorial at brands including Farfetch, Net-A-Porter and Stella McCartney before moving into the advertising world.
Lucinda established the strategic consultancy studio Sibling in 2020, where she helps brands create meaningful connections with their audiences. Her strategic practice is deeply informed by contemporary cultural analysis and media theory and seeks to interrogate how cultural trends and shifting consumer behaviours impact our relationships with brands.
She has worked with some of the best brands in the world, including Nike, adidas, Amazon, Durex, Hinge, Bumble, Coke, LVMH, Wales Bonner, Footlocker, Burberry, NTS, Tommy Hilfiger, and Cash App.
🎯 The art of being intentional
Something I've been thinking about with my work recently is this idea of cultural flattening, the homogenisation of culture, and how nothing feels radically new or different anymore. I’ve found myself wondering how I can mitigate against contributing to this phenomenon with the work I do.
I've noticed this permeating through the brand and advertising space, too. Over the past few years, there has been an overabundance of thought leadership, think-pieces, reports, insights and general noise online. Everyone has a hot take, and it's getting to a point where everyone is just saying the same thing, and most of it isn't that insightful or interesting. I understand the irony of me saying this in this format, but I do think there is an art to being intentional about what you say online. Publishing every thought that comes into your head doesn't make you a great strategist; writing listicles about that week's most viral memes doesn't make you a good strategist. Creating meaningful work is about observing people, communities and trends, understanding motivations and drivers and then using that to create work that is useful and that resonates.
One thing I do as much as possible is give my time away, so I make slots available in my calendar for people looking to get into advertising or working with brands. I prioritise anyone from minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled, neurodiverse, or anyone from a lower socio-economic background. I've spoken with dozens and dozens of people from London to Brazil, Spain, Berlin and Singapore looking to either change their careers, understand how to go freelance or get their foot in the door.
Helping others is something that really drives me. I understand that it might come across like virtue-signalling, but I am acutely aware of my privilege as a white middle-class woman in an industry of predominantly white middle class people. You can't do a good job when you only have one type of person in the boardroom. I want to extend the ladder down to people who have not had the same advantages as me to get into the industry.
🙋 Deep cultural research inspired by real people
Ultimately, my work tries to understand how we interact with brands, and what brands mean to people.I have found that more recently, I have done that from a more academic-like approach, rather than necessarily just looking at stuff on the internet. And I find that the sociology and psychology forward approach is really, really interesting to me. That's what I always try to imbue my strategic practice with – really understanding the human part of it.
I feel like the strategist has a responsibility of being the advocate for the consumer and being the mouthpiece to really understanding them. Where possible, I love doing focus groups and research with real people, like specific communities – young people, Gen Z, etc. If I have an opportunity to speak to a group of Gen Z kids and ask them what they think about, you end up getting all this ethnographic research, which for me is just so invaluable.
💪 Women who are starting their own agencies (or doing their own things)
I feel fortunate to work with and know some incredibly smart women running projects, studios, and agencies in London. They are all creating better, more efficient, and smarter work than most legacy network agencies out there. Phie McKenzie, who founded Creative Ally, which is a talent agency for purpose-driven creators; Isobel Farmiloe, who writes all of Dazed Studio's incredible insight reports; Hope Able who runs things at NTS Radio; and the writer Ashleigh Kane, who curates Art After Hours (amongst other things) are all doing really cool work in London and beyond.
I got to see the live podcast taping for After Work Drinks, one of the many podcasts I listen to. They did a live show at the Rio cinema in Hackney. I like their mix of the high-brow and low-brow ; sometimes, it's inane chat about JLo's self-funded film This is Me...Now or being robbed of your sexiest years due to COVID-19 and sometimes, it's an articulate deep dive into the experience of womanhood. And it feels like it's unashamedly for the girlies and I love that.
🗽 NY Mag's The Approval Matrix
My favourite way to consume media is to get a physical subscription to a publication – as a cultural strategist, you are chronically online, so sometimes it's a treat to have something to read that isn't on a screen. I have a lot of subscriptions to various papers – but my favourite thing to read is New York Magazine, which I get sent to me each month. I'm obsessed with their writing, from their political coverage to investigative reporting and cultural commentary. On the back cover they have something called The Approval Matrix, which is their guide to what is highbrow, lowbrow, despicable, and brilliant. It's always so on point. I desperately want someone to start the London version of New York Magazine because I think it's really needed - if anyone knows the London-based equivalent, let me know!
There's a substacker named Ana Andjelic that I think is doing great work. She writes The Sociology of Business, and I find that she's so smart and manages to articulate exactly how brands operate in a modern culture context. She connects things together in a way that makes so much sense and is just so well done.
Follow Lucinda on Linkedin and check out her website here.
💭 Share your thoughts ➡️ DM on IG or Email us.
✅ Make Thought Enthusiast better by filling out a quick reader survey here.