Fnac is the iconic cultural retailer in France, fighting for cultural openness since 1954. By being a store where culture was lived and not just consumed, Fnac occupied an important place in French minds and hearts. But while the digital revolution was disrupting the whole culture industry, Fnac has put all its efforts into building strong e-commerce capabilities to resist. At the same time, the brand equity has been left behind. As a result, consumer studies showed Fnac was losing its relevance and its connexion with French people. Present as a marketplace, but not as a cultural brand. We needed to reignite the essential role of Fnac: to be the player that strives for a richer, diverse, and open culture, to ultimately regain consideration and love. New brand platform, new comms platform, new actions... we had to change everything.

For us, it all starts by finding a relevant way to revitalize our long-lasting commitment. To do this, there is nothing better than fighting against the most powerful enemy of cultural openness today: recommendation algorithms, the invisible machine power behind the culture.

Algorithms influence everything we like, talk about, buy, read, or watch. They guide us into cultural bubbles where we see only a part of what the world really is. They make us experience culture from a filter where everything looks the same, where nothing makes us see the world a bit differently, and where nothing opens us to new passions or new horizons.

For Fnac, the fight was here. We revamped the brand platform and set a new brand tagline: “Free the culture”. A fight to empower the plurality and richness of culture, but above all a fight for freeing people from their bubbles and giving them back the beauty of serendipity.