Cultural Analyst
Calling all cultural thinkers and insights explorers! FINN Partners is looking for a mid-level Cultural Analyst to join our Strategy and Insights team. We are in search of someone who’s curious about people, energized by patterns in behavior, and passionate about decoding what’s shaping our world today. You’ll bring a confident POV on what’s influencing consumer sentiment, emerging behaviors, and category disruptions, and connect those signals to business-relevant strategies for clients across sectors. This is a thinking and doing role: part researcher, part trend mapper, part story-framer.
What You’ll Be Doing
As our new Cultural Analyst, you’ll work closely with strategists, creatives, and client teams to uncover the “why” behind the “what”. You’ll surface insights that help shape the big idea and ensure our clients show up in a way that’s timely, relevant, and resonant.
This role offers the chance to shape our insights practice: formalizing our approaches, building our insights library, and guiding integration into strategic processes.
What you’ll bring to the table:
You’re a critical thinker, a curious researcher, and a compelling storyteller. You love pattern-finding and insight-building, and you know how to turn a cultural observation into a clear strategic idea. You’re organized, efficient, and collaborative, with the ability to drive projects independently while feeding into larger strategic thinking.
As for what we’ve got to offer you?
- Competitive salary, benefits package, and a commitment to work-life balance.
- Generous PTO that gets even more generous the longer you’re here
- A culture that values innovation, continuous learning, and collaboration.
- Career advancement opportunities in a fast-growing company.
- A wellness subsidy.
- A manager that provides consistent 1:1 check-ins, reviews, and culture-building opportunities to connect with people across the organization.
Core responsibilities:
- Monitor and synthesize cultural trends and behavioral insights across verticals
- Develop cultural POVs that inform brand strategy, creative briefs, audience segmentation, and thought leadership
- Lead secondary research workstreams: social listening, media scan, and audience profiling
- Connect qualitative and quantitative findings to generate insight-rich strategy inputs
- Support competitive monitoring, including positioning, share of voice, and category whitespace analysis
- Support competitive intelligence deliverable, including messaging audits, SWOT analysis, and category SOV snapshots
- Build and maintain a cultural intelligence repository, including but not limited to frameworks, trend trackers, signal maps
- Use GenAI tools to accelerate synthesis and signal detection (e.g., trend clustering, tone analysis)
- Work across teams to ensure cultural context is embedded in all phases of brand, comms, and campaign work
- Support new business and major client engagements with quick turn insights decks and input into pitch narratives
Pro Tip! Qualities that will set you apart from the rest…
- Deep curiosity about people, identity, tech, media, and the world around you
- A sharp editorial eye and confidence presenting your POV
- Ability to work across multiple client types, from corporate reputation to lifestyle and consumer brands
- High attention to detail and strong organizational skills
- A problem solving mindset - you don’t just spot problems, you solve them
- A collaborative, team-first approach
Where will you work?
For this role, we have a strong preference for candidates located near Portland, Oregon or New York. However, we will consider candidates in other U.S. locations. We're a remote-first workplace with optional in-office days in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, LA, Nashville, New York, Portland, Washington DC, and more.
Anticipated Salary:
$75,000 $85,000
Compensation is based on experience and depending upon workplace location.
Interested? Fantastic.
If you have…
- Bachelor’s degree (Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Communications, Marketing, or related fields preferred)
- Four to six years of relevant experience in a cultural insights, strategic planning, or audience research role in an agency, consultancy, or trend firm
- Demonstrated ability to lead end-to-end insight workstreams - from to data collection to synthesis to presentation
As well as the following…
- Strong command of qualitative research methodologies, secondary synthesis, and trend analysis frameworks (e.g., cultural codes, laddering, need states, signal-to-insight mapping)
- Fluency with at least two of the following tools: Meltwater, Talkwalker, GWI, Mintel, and MRI Simmons
- Comfort with ad libraries, SimilarWeb, and other competitive intelligence tools like CB Insights, SEMRush, Vivvix, and WARC
- Hands-on experience using GenAI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, etc.) to support signal mining, content summarization, or creative exploration
- Excellent synthesis and storytelling skills: can craft compelling insight narratives, visual frameworks, and stakeholder-ready decks
- Strong comfort with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and fast-paced agency environments
We’d love to hear from you!
#LI-TS1 #LI-REMOTE
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Communications, Marketing, or related fields
- Four to six years of relevant experience in a cultural insights, strategic planning, or audience research role
- Strong command of qualitative research methodologies and trend analysis frameworks
- Fluency with tools like Meltwater, Talkwalker, GWI, and Mintel
- Hands-on experience using GenAI tools for signal mining and content summarization
Finn Partners Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Finn Partners and has not been reviewed or approved by Finn Partners.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage includes comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans with employer-paid base employee coverage, plus HSA/FSA options and mental health resources. Wellness support such as an annual subsidy and access to counseling and virtual therapy reinforces breadth of care.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off encompasses vacation/PTO, numerous paid holidays, sick and personal days, monthly half-days, Summer Days, and a paid Winter Break. Additional paid time for volunteering and Election Day supports balance and community involvement.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with company matching (100% up to 3% plus 50% on the next 2%) is available after six months. The match structure and eligibility timeline provide tangible support for retirement savings.
Finn Partners Insights
What We Do
1400+ People. 3 Continents. 33 Offices. We are a global integrated marketing agency transforming and inspiring the world of communications every day. A LETTER FROM PETER FINN: DECEMBER 2011. FINN PARTNERS WAS BORN. After 11 years serving as co-CEO of an historic agency that carried my father’s name— and mine!—and after 30+ years of working at the firm, I wanted to build something different, bold, meaningful and amazing for clients, our colleagues and the community. "Amazing" was, and is, for me an important word. I imagined we could be "amazing" every day, knowing this is a goal not always achieved but always pursued. A place where talented people could gather and do big things for clients as well as make a difference to the communities important to us. WE LAUNCHED WITH A GROUP WHO SHARED A VISION. This was to be a "new" agency model, driven by a collaborative spirit. We asked, "Can we bind our 60-year legacy to the energy and speed of today’s hi-tech world?" We had $24 million in fees at our founding. Today, we have more than $85 million in fees, over 700 colleagues and 18 offices across three continents. Our Founding Managing Partners, highly respected colleagues who took the leap with me from our former agency, have been joined by the principals of other great agencies that became Finn Partner companies. So many other talented individuals are with us, too, intrigued by the idea of doing amazing things in an amazing workplace community. WE’VE MADE OUR MARK QUICKLY. Finn Partners has been named “Best New Agency,” “Best PR Agency to Work for in North America” and“Best Mid-Sized Agency of the Year” three times. Now, we’re one of the world’s largest agencies. WE ARE A YOUNG AGENCY. We share the genes of a respected agency that pioneered today’s integrated communications. But we are not them. We are unique. We are ourselves. We are focused on the future, building that future during each amazing day.
