Working with Troika ("Hollywood’s leading integrated branding and marketing agency" according to Forbes) as a creative executive in television marketing, Kresnicka says her job is to "encourage our clients to focus less on trend-chasing and more on understanding the broader cultural forces." Like all anthropologists, she does this by bringing a sense of the 'bigger picture' to her work by looking at cultural forces at play -- that is, looking at who audiences or fans of a television show or sports event are, how they watch, and how and why they connect to it.
Understanding how entertainment content is valued by consumers can have "real implications for our businesses, from programming to marketing to corporate social responsibility." Kresnicka's work and the insights of her team into things like 'fandom' are increasingly important in businesses like entertainment, which are rapidly changing through things like online streaming and social media (see our post on Who makes the news?).
Links:
- Why Understanding Fans is the New Superpower (Variety, 2 April 2016)
- Cultural Anthropologist Susan Kresnicka Reveals How Her Core Passions Help Hollywood Thrive (Forbes, 20 January 2016)
- Examining Marketers' Challenges with an Anthropologist's Eye (Brief, 14 August 2014)
- Troika’s Susan Kresnicka: Entertaining Change Through Media Anthropology (Brief, 8 June 2015)
- Who makes the news? (Anthro Everywhere! 8 March 2016)