How the Paris.Monks Bring Cultural Insight Through a Global Lens

A little over a decade ago in Paris, the advertising services company Dare.Win was born out of the desire to help brands rise above the noise through daring experiences. Working with both French brands and international companies looking to tap into the local market, the Dare.Win team thrived by leveraging new formats across entertainment—a powerful tool to get audiences emotionally engaged. 

Eleven years after Dare.Win’s founding, the digital ecosystem has evolved beyond measure—fueled by an audience that’s more demanding, and in more control, than ever before. To achieve the agility needed to build brand relevance in today’s digital ecosystem, Media.Monks and Dare.Win combined forces in 2020 to operate at scale with an integrated offering across data, media, content creation, production and more. Now, we’re taking our unified approach to the next level. With a new name that cements a change in dimension, we’re proud to introduce our combined local team, the Paris.Monks.

Experiences imbued with cultural insight. 

Whether developing experiences that are fully virtual, physical or somewhere in between, our job as end-to-end partners is to create meaningful, branded moments that resonate with the target audience. Sounds simple, but here’s the catch: tastes are nuanced, and no two markets are exactly alike. In France, like in every market, brands need to factor in local insights—both to adapt their existing content and to inform future decisions.

During one of Paris’ hottest summers, our experts drew upon the extreme temperature to generate exposure for Get 27, a traditional French apéritif. The experience featured a “fresh street” where locals could cool down in a branded space—giving them what they needed when they needed it. Experiential activations like this thrive on local intuition, which is equally important in every aspect of a brand’s marketing. When it comes to media buying, for instance, brands need to know their publishers and their background. The same happens with influencer marketing. And even after you’ve mastered the cultural component, personal nuances enter the picture.

First-party data fuels personalization.

Even within a specific market and cultural framework, consumer interests can widely vary, which is where the power of data comes into play. We know consumers expect products and experiences to be tailored to their interests and lifestyle, but this level of personalization only comes with a solid first-party data strategy.

How you use data can make or break your relationship with consumers. They want to feel seen, not spied on. No one likes to have a repetitive ad chasing them from platform to platform, or to share all their data before they can even assess how much value a brand can offer them. “Today, consumers expect personalization in a balanced way,” says Charles Moynet, the head of our DDM practice in France. “Tailored to their interests, but not creepy."

Indeed, first-party data should be the fuel that feeds the rest of the supply chain. When capabilities are siloed, the value that the data team extracts rarely informs the work of creative teams, whereas in a unified approach, insights flow seamlessly between them. The goal is never to frantically collect data; rather, to reach a healthy feedback cycle in which users’ data improves the experience and vice versa. 

Local understanding through the bird’s-eye view of a global team.

Cultural insight and a solid first-party data strategy are key ingredients in the recipe for business growth—but above all, the secret sauce is banking on a multicultural team of professionals from all walks of life.

For global brands, having a multicultural partner can help them show up authentically for various audiences. And while having specific cultural insight helps identify opportunities, banking on a global team comes in handy when tapping into multiple markets. A good example of this is how our fashion and luxury capability team, the FLUX.Monks, helped Amazon Fashion Europe build their cred in five different markets: France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK. Through a 360-degree campaign spanning content creation, influencer marketing, translation support and more, we established a council where each member represented a key market and gave a humanized feel to the brand’s wide offering.

The importance of an integrated approach stems from the fact that driving desire and relevance within a specific audience means being in touch with the topics, channels, formats and technologies they find alluring. says Liam Osbourne, Our Global Client Partner for FLUX.

Through a group of professionals belonging to a variety of cultures and subcultures, we foster opportunities for innovation—combining the best of all worlds for a well-informed pursuit of relevance. Working from Paris’ backyard and backed by a global team, the Paris.Monks will continue to reinvent marketing and support our partners through a digital-first offering that spans creative content, technology, performance, media buying and everything in between.