Protesters converged on the City of London today as the G20 met.

What is the dress code for a demonstration?

First of all, don’t look like the sort of people the demonstrators are protesting against. Police have been advising city workers who usually wear suits to dress down for the day.

But what many bankers think is casual dress is very different from the younger, more counter-cultural crowd filling up the streets today. It’s pretty easy to guess who’s management and who’s not. (Different degrees of blending in illustrated above).

This is a classic example of how a generally understood term (casual dress) is interpreted in very culturally specific ways. Obvious? But how often are other, extremely wide terms such as ‘aspirational’, ‘cool’ or ‘desireable’ get used as a matter of course in briefs without properly clarifying what that actually means for the intended audience? Understanding the aesthetics and cultural reference points of your audience is key and getting orientated takes a rich, visual medium like film as well as culturally sensitive interpretation and recording. Missing this information means you strike the wrong note with your audience, like wearing a rugby shirt with clean shoes amongst trainers and hoodies.