Totems are artefacts that help us make sense of our world. That's what Totem does for complicated products, markets and audiences. Outstandingly clear, simple and effective communication ideas for complicated sectors like corporate, finance and business.

Engine Group is the fastest-growing marketing services group in the UK. The unique Engine business model means Totem clients have access on demand to best-in-class specialist partners in advertising, direct, digital, PR, IR, sponsorship, events... or not.

At Totem we're interested in the complicated world of business. We're also interested in the wider culture of which business is a part. That means we're interested in pretty well everything — some artefacts we'd like to share with you are here.

We make our own occasional contributions to the culture, too. Below you'll find some recent articles and broadcasts by us and about us.

Bye Bye Levi Strauss

Posted 4 November 2009 by Ian Henderson.

Totem would like to pay our respects to Claude Levi Strauss, who passed away on November 3rd aged 100.  Levi Strauss' career as a anthropologist was devoted to understanding the way in which people relate to the objects around them.

This led him to develop the theory of totemism, from which we took our name.  Totemism describes our need to create physical representations of social concepts in order to simplify and unify our identity. Which means totems and brands are remarkably similar.  

As good totemists (and brand creators), we try to find simple ideas for a complicated world. Ideas that make strong communications for business, corporate and financial brands. We'd like to think that in our own small way it's a tribute to the pioneering work of Claude Levi Strauss.   Thanks, Claude.