cultural resonance – As “taste” becomes the latest marketing buzzword in 2026, business leaders are being pushed to move beyond reach and ad efficiency—especially in an era where AI content floods feeds and celebrity spending keeps rising.
Perhaps the marketing word of 2026 is “taste.” Creators argue about it on TikTok. Tech founders insist they can measure and “possess” it. Media outlets keep dissecting it because the term is oddly easy to recognize and hard to define.
Taste—when it’s real—sits somewhere between sensitivity, intuition, and learned judgment. People recognize it in the choices they see in a living room, in a wardrobe, on a wall, or coming out of a kitchen. It’s not just what someone makes. It’s how they combine it.
In 2026, though, taste is being reframed as something more than aesthetic preference. It’s increasingly treated as a business asset, a competitive advantage. And some of the loudest advocates are coming from corporate tech—the very industry that helped flatten taste by turning more of daily life into feeds and feeds into algorithms.
Filterworld already warned that algorithms can act as invisible curators. In Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld (2024). he argued that playlisting. news feeds. and even travel plans can be nudged by code into a culture of passive consumption. The end result, he suggested, is algorithmic sameness replacing individuality.
Since then, another force has been added to the mix: AI-slop. The idea isn’t subtle—when people feel surrounded by content that looks plausible but doesn’t feel human. the appetite shifts toward something “real.” Taste with a capital T starts to look less like a vibe and more like a safeguard. It positions brands against the sameness people associate with Instagram coffee shops. Airbnb aesthetics. quiet luxury wardrobes. and DTC wellness brands.
But applying taste to marketing is where the trouble begins, because taste doesn’t behave like algorithmic attention. It requires active interest and curiosity, the same way personal taste reflects knowledge of and participation in a topic. Brands, in this view, can’t borrow taste like they borrow a font. Taste is tied to personal narrative and layered history—so it carries nuance, not just aesthetics.
There’s also a sharper edge to it: taste is as much about saying no as it is about saying yes. As people get better at spotting AI-slop. the same logic points toward learning to identify “taste-slop”—things designed to look tasteful while remaining empty of thought. Taste, too, isn’t fixed. It changes as people and the world around them change. And it can be paradoxical: sometimes “bad taste” is what people crave. and depending on the cultural mood. bad taste can flip into good taste.
That’s the dilemma for marketers trying to turn something deeply human into a business lever. Taste might protect a brand from looking generic, but it can’t be bought outright.
The argument for taste as a business tool also misses a bigger point if it stays trapped in the “guard against slop” frame. Taste should be seen as a driver of cultural literacy. In a marketing environment where audiences increasingly look for brands with creative passions. taste isn’t only about avoiding emptiness—it’s about building anticipation. especially anticipation of where culture is moving.
Some of the enduring figures in creative culture are described as curators and thinkers as much as markers. Jonathan Anderson, Rick Rubin, and Miuccia Prada are cited in this line of thinking. The claim is that lasting cultural influence comes from challenging audiences—showing what someone is interested in. often before the rest of the market is ready to meet it.
The piece draws a direct parallel to how another growth lever has been used before: talent. including influencers. creators. and celebrities. Last year. content on platforms such as YouTube. TikTok. and Instagram attracted more advertising income this year than content from traditional media companies. U.S. brands spent more than $1 billion on celebrity talent in 2025. and for many of those brands. it became the single biggest line item in their marketing budget.
Yet the spending didn’t deliver the work it “should have.” Not because brands chose the wrong names, but because they used talent the wrong way.
Casting conversations often begin with the question of who is the most famous person the target audience follows right now—an approach optimized for reach, not alignment. That reach, the argument goes, typically benefits the celebrity more than the brand.
The better question is framed differently: what do brands want to mean in culture, and how can another person—creator, celebrity, face—connect that meaning. That approach is said to optimize for relevance, resonance, and long-term brand equity.
In this era, there’s a seductive escape route: try to wield taste and talent with brute force. Piggyback trending aesthetics. Align with trending faces. But the currency here isn’t reach. It’s cultural resonance, and resonance happens through attraction, not force.
That puts a spotlight on what brands need from an agency partner at a moment described as a flux—some even call it rupture—in brand-agency relationships. Brands are increasingly bringing creative resources in-house and spending directly with media platforms. Legacy advertising companies are also evolving into tech consultants.
Scale and efficiency are in focus, but the question that hangs over the market is simpler: what happens to creativity and consideration?
In an age that demands cultural fluency. businesses need a specific kind of creative partner—one that can’t just make things that look great. The description is more personal than technical: the right partner should behave like a stylish friend who reveals the world by sharing their own passions. helping clients cultivate their own.
That partner is expected to do more than casting. They help brands understand who to cast in campaigns, but also who else to partner with to launch new products and ideas. They help decide which “rooms” to enter—and make sure a brand walks in with the right people.
Just as importantly, the partner stays for the long stretch. The view here is that taste and talent are not blunt instruments meant to solve problems quickly. They’re delicate muscles built over time.
The central tension running through the argument is plain: corporate tech helped reduce individuality through algorithmic curation. AI-slop has amplified the sense of sameness. and now “taste” and “talent” are being treated as answers. But the facts laid out here point to the same conclusion from different angles—reach and imitation can get attention. yet they don’t automatically produce resonance. meaning. or lasting brand equity.
taste in marketing cultural resonance celebrity talent spending agency partners AI-slop algorithms Filterworld Kyle Chayka Jonathan Anderson Rick Rubin Miuccia Prada YouTube TikTok Instagram advertising income