Semiotics and cultural insight has moved front and centre, accounting for a greater share of research budgets and increasingly becoming more mainstream, with an application for everything from diversity challenges to content creation.

Business strategy needs to be agile to adapt to a constantly mutating culture. But cultural intelligence navigates a treacherous terrain, whether it’s shoring up the value proposition in a cost-of-living crisis, sensitively negotiating the death of the Queen or dealing with toxic masculinity.

Why it matters