Hello!
I am Ri An, a research specialist and strategy consultant helping businesses and brands use customer and cultural insights to drive growth and innovation.
One thing I have painfully learnt (and am still learning) in the past decade (8 years practising in industry after grad school), is the trickiness of translating these insights into business profitability. But we will come to that in a bit. Let me talk more about why I am a sucker for stories.
Trained as a sociologist and ethnographer, nothing fascinates me more than understanding the human condition.
“Stories” (and its cousins “storytelling”, “narratives” to name a few) have become somewhat of a dirty word in the branding and marketing world. But stories are treasure troves to excavate meaning. And meaning influence how people make choices.
Culture Rider is a space where I can tell stories that are both true, and interesting.
But I want to go one step further, I want to find and make these stories USEFUL; stories that can inform and inspire brands to stay relevant and meaningful to their customers.
True, Interesting & Useful
Stories that Inform and Inspire
Your business and customers do not live in vacuums. They live in webs of meaning - what we term as Culture. Understanding people (your customers) is not possible or complete if we do not also appreciate the cultural milieu people operate in.
To understand Culture, we listen for stories. We observe how people behave, analyse what people say and make sense of their everyday choice-making. We search for MEANINGS, old and new. We locate CHANGE.
Cultural change is useful. Change presents opportunities for businesses and brands to help their customers re-evaluate choices, rethink value, and reconnect to communities. Understanding cultural change helps businesses and brands stay in tuned to what their customers truly need and want.
