Forget Great Britishness: brands need tribes, not tea towels

The era of the "Great British" everything may have peaked, according to Steve Monk-Chipman, head of creative at Bottle, who argues local is king.

For a while there, culture was drowning in the prefix “Great British Something or Other”. Bake Offs, Sewing Bees, Throw Downs, School Trips, Spring Cleans. You name it, and we’ve had a Great British-y version of it, inviting us all to the same big, happy, gingham-covered, broadly Middle England version of Britishness.

When we’re proud of our athletes, our musicians, our comedy or our binge-drinking statistics, then we’re British. The rest of the time, our shared identity is found in smaller, more specific, oddly tribal things: the quirks of our regional language. The idiosyncrasies of our boroughs and neighbours. The characters, kin and cultural references we grew up with locally.

For a long time we’ve referenced our “tribes”, so it’s no surprise that brands lean into localised subcultures. 

Strongbow’s ‘Refreshing the Nation’ OOH, built around the expressions people use in different parts of Britain, does this simply and effectively. It doesn’t pretend we’re all the same; it finds the common ground in our differences.

These differences speak more clearly to us because we instantly “get” them - and they “get” us.

This is what we mean when we talk about brands becoming Kin Makers… helping them join communities anchored in the topics they own, the products people love or the values they share.

Niche references might speak directly to smaller tribes, but the depth of that connection sends a much stronger signal. It gives us something worth gathering around.

“Great Britishness” is a homogeneous, neatly pressed monoculture. That’s great, but we’re Brit-ish. We belong to a collection of messier, wrinklier, more interesting subcultures. We’re looking for the belonging that comes with tribes, without the division that comes with tribalism.

Got a hot take on brands and Britishness? Email tom@creativemoment.co