using storytelling to shape Culture

Hi! My name is Loane Bouguennec. I’m a French-American strategist and cultural theorist passionate about understanding and shaping cultural narratives. I’m driven by a desire to understand and meaningfully contribute to people’s worlds through brand strategy and storytelling. Recently, I published an article on the brand opportunity emerging from the rise of American soccer.

Some of my Favorite Projects

AUG 25

American brands get soccer in America wrong. They try to tap into global soccer fandom or appeal to the professional leagues, ignoring the rich soccer, or football, culture that is embedded across the US. Read about how brands should disrupt institutional cultural capital and what they should focus on instead here.

JAN 24 - JUN 24

As movie theaters vanish and streaming platforms continue to rise, we are becoming more distracted and thinking and feeling less. Travel to Sundance Film Festival, New York City, and Paris, France to investigate the structures that preserve film engagement and why it matters.

SEPT 23 - JUN 23

Despite its plentiful offerings, the Hood Museum of Art is ill-attended by Dartmouth students. It’s difficult to make time for the things you feel like you “should” do. But what if visitng the museum also meant spending time reflecting and connecting with friends…find out more about “The Museum Journal” here.

TESTIMONIALS

“I’ve worked with many interns before and Loane has been the most impressive strategic thinker by far! She was able to take a complex cultural topic and identify clear, relevant, and provocative insights that framed the challenge in a fresh, compelling way. She met deadlines consistently and brought great energy and curiosity into the studio.”

Mary Cass, Strategy Director @ The Working Assembly

“Loane is a true scholar, ever curious with insightful questions as well as authentic, deep and examined interests in the theoretical frameworks. She invites others to join her inquiries into the hows and whys of our world, building scholarly community.”

Paula Olsen, Research & Design Program Manager @ Design Initiative at Dartmouth

Published Writing

Although much of my writing is through audio, academic, or not made to leave the walls of an open mic, my favorite published writing can be found below!

  • “This is an inflection point—the moment when soccer could turn from a niche passion or a fleeting trend, into a lasting part of American sports culture. The US is hosting the World Cup and recruiting the best players to prove to the world that we can play at a high level too. But the US isn’t quite there yet. Many stadiums for the Club Cup were empty, leaving global fans and players disappointed.”

    Read more here

  • “How do you tell the story of a messy, human life with kindness?”

    This blog post I wrote for Transom, a radio nonprofit, offers reflections about telling complicated stories. I ask about how to tell a story with kindness when the subject is someone you’ve learned is different than you originally thought.

    Read more here!

  • Find my audio stories here!

Awards & Recognitions

  • Design & Entrepreneurship (Spring, 2025)

    Advanced Poetry (Fall, 2024),

    Introduction to Poetry (Fall, 2022),

    Secret Histories, a literature course (Spring, 2022)

  • Awarded collectively $17,000 for interdisciplinary projects by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, the Leslie Center for the Humanities, Dartmouth’s Music Department, and the Center for Professional Development.

  • Lead student mentor for Design Corps—a student design collective—supporting students through the design thinking process.

    Language instructor for four years, creating a comfortable learning environment and making language learning fun.

  • Winner of TuckLAB entrepreneurship competition (winter 2021) for original start-up idea to digitize Dartmouth’s identification cards.

    Scoping, securing funding for, and executing multiple independent projects. See “projects” page.