How Boots develops strategy based on cultural analysis

Sam Peña-Taylor

Boots, the UK-headquartered health and beauty retailer, used a form of cultural analysis to understand emerging ideas of health to refine its brand.

Boots, the UK-headquartered health and beauty retailer, is a mainstay of the British high street. Founded in 1849, it must live with a set of associations which go deeper than the present moment in culture, but which also hold useful clues as to where the brand needs to go in the future. To do this, it deploys cultural analysis.

“What we get out of cultural analysis is this rich overview of potential futures in society, kind of like a little chocolate box of cultural treats,” explains Gill Hayes, Global Head of Research at US parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance, speaking...

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