Cultural appropriation vs appreciation: when comedy gets it right (and brands get it wrong)
Watching Have You Been Paying Attention the other night got me thinking about the old cultural appropriation versus appreciation paradigm. If you know the show, you’ll know the running gag between Tom Gleisner and Sam Pang around race and stereotypes. This week Tom donned a ‘Japanese’ bandana (hachimaki style), karate chopped some wooden boards, and talked with some terrible dubbing, playing on all the tired Asian martial arts clichés. And it was genuinely funny – because it’s two mates who understand exactly what they’re doing, the power dynamics at play, and the absurdity of lumping different Asian cultures together with lazy stereotypes.
But watching it made me think about how often brands try to engage with different cultures and completely miss this nuance. They see the surface-level symbols and think ‘job done’ – without understanding the context, relationships, or deeper cultural meaning that makes the difference between appreciation and appropriation. And when they get it wrong? The business consequences can be brutal.
The business case for getting cultural engagement right
In multicultural marketing, we see brands struggle with this constantly. The stakes couldn’t be higher – migration delivers significant economic value, with every 1,000 migrants generating a $124 million annual economic dividend to Australia. Get cultural engagement wrong, and you’re not just facing social media backlash – you’re potentially alienating massive market segments.
The business risks are real and measurable: product recalls cost money, cancelled campaigns waste marketing spend, and rebuilding trust with communities takes years. But the flip side is equally compelling – brands that authentically connect with cultural communities see stronger engagement rates, increased brand loyalty, and access to previously untapped markets.
The difference between appropriation and appreciation often comes down to one thing – whether you worked with communities or simply took from them. Let’s look at how some major brands got this spectacularly wrong, and others got it right.
The clangers: when brands miss the mark
Take Nike’s 2019 Air Force 1 ‘Puerto Rico’ shoe – Nike copied traditional mola patterns belonging to the Guna Indigenous women of Panama and Colombia, but marketed it as Puerto Rican street art. The distinctive zigzag borders and color combinations are signature Guna designs that have been made by Indigenous women for centuries. Nike not only used protected cultural designs without permission, but completely misrepresented their origins. The Guna community quickly spoke up, pointing out this was outright cultural piracy. Nike pulled the entire release just weeks before launch and issued an apology for ‘inaccurate representation of the design origin’. The business impacts were immediate – production waste, marketing spend on a cancelled launch, and ongoing legal exposure from compensation claims. All preventable with proper cultural due diligence.
But perhaps more concerning is when brands repeat the same mistakes. Victoria’s Secret shows how cultural blindness can become a systemic business risk. Their 2017 Shanghai fashion show featured a blonde Austrian model wearing a feathered headdress resembling a traditional Native American war bonnet during their ‘Nomadic Adventures’ segment. This was particularly damaging because Victoria’s Secret had faced the same criticism in 2012 for using sacred Indigenous items as fashion accessories – yet here they were, five years later, making the identical mistake. Sacred war bonnets, which symbolise respect and bravery in many Native American tribes, were again reduced to exotic lingerie props. This repeat offense demonstrates the cost of not embedding cultural intelligence into approval processes. When you don’t learn from cultural missteps, you’re guaranteed to make them again – each time with more damage to credibility and market relationships.
Getting it right: cultural engagement done well
In contrast, when Telstra wanted to connect with South Asian audiences during Diwali, MultiConnexions developed a campaign featuring authentic Bollywood cultural references that spoke to the festival’s deeper meaning – light over darkness and prosperity. Rather than generic ‘happy Diwali’ messaging, the creative connected Telstra’s telecommunications services to the cultural value of connection and communication during this important celebration. The campaign was part of Telstra’s broader multicultural strategy, not a one-off cultural moment.
When Belong Mobile wanted to connect with Chinese audiences, they partnered with MultiConnexions to create an authentic Chinese New Year campaign that went beyond surface-level celebration. Rather than generic ‘Happy New Year’ messaging, the campaign leveraged genuine cultural concepts of gifting and goodwill that are central to the festival. The creative used meaningful cultural symbols – lucky red packets and red lanterns – while connecting Belong’s core value proposition (shareable data) to the cultural practice of sharing and generosity during Chinese New Year. The campaign was delivered through culturally appropriate channels (WeChat and Weibo) in simplified Chinese, showing understanding of how this community actually consumes media.
This approach shows how cultural engagement works best when brands connect their core values to authentic cultural practices, rather than simply adding cultural symbols to existing campaigns. Our recent Lunar New Year blog has more examples of brands doing this effectively.
What actually works
Successful cultural engagement requires ‘cultural intelligence’ – the ability to function effectively across cultural contexts. Before we get to practical steps, here are some key questions our team suggests brands ask themselves:
- Intent vs Impact: your intentions matter, but community impact matters more
- Relationship vs Transaction: are you building ongoing relationships or making one-off cultural ‘grabs’?
- Collaboration vs Appropriation: did you work WITH the community or just take FROM it?
We often see brands focus on visual symbols while ignoring deeper cultural values and meanings – which is exactly where things go wrong.
5 ways to stay on the right side of cultural engagement
- Do your research FIRST – understand the cultural significance before you design
- Partner with communities – work with cultural experts and community organisations, don’t go it alone
- Connect values, not just visuals – link your brand values to authentic cultural practices
- Use appropriate channels – meet communities where they actually consume media
- Make it ongoing – cultural engagement should be part of your broader strategy, not a one-off campaign
Cultural intelligence isn’t just about avoiding mistakes – it’s about unlocking authentic connections with Australia’s incredibly diverse communities. And with migrants contributing so significantly to the Australian economy, that’s not just good ethics – it’s good business.