In this AW360 episode, Crystal Foote—Founder and Head of Partnerships at Digital Culture Group—shares how her team uses real-time cultural data and their award-winning Audience Resonance Index (AARI) platform to help brands connect with audiences authentically. Crystal explains why it’s time to move past broad demographic targeting, how data can transform raw insights into meaningful engagement, and why chasing viral trends can waste marketing dollars. From privacy-compliant insights to anticipating cultural shifts before they go mainstream, Crystal reveals what future-ready marketers need to know to resonate at the true speed of culture.
Transcript (Download)
Crystal, welcome to the AW360 podcast. I’m so pleased to have you on today. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. So you’re founder and head of partnerships at Digital Culture Group. To start things off, tell us a bit about Digital Culture Group. So Digital Culture Group, we are an audience first performance engineered ad tech company. We really focus on making sure we can reach audiences authentically utilizing data signals with our award winning award-winning AI-powered platform called AARI, which stands for Audience Resonance Index. Excellent. I love the emphasis on award-winning. Did I say that enough? If I ever won an award for anything, I’d be sure and do that too. Rest assured. That’s absolutely great. So you’ve built Digital Culture Group around the idea of using real-time cultural data to engage people at the level of their values and identities. How does that differ from traditional audience segmentation? yeah so richard let’s go back to the 1960s right we have a television screen in the middle of our living room well not that old but other families did in the middle of their living room watching the same programming as probably their neighbor on the same block probably their other peers across the city right and it was easy at that time for brands to get really just basic reporting back saying that they advertised to demographic adults 18 to 34 adults 25 to 54. Unfortunately, speed forward, we’re still reporting back on those really broad-based demographics. And with really the speed of culture, we see that ad tech has not caught up at all. Because we have so many different screens now, the media consumption is very fragmented, that audiences are changing rapidly every generation, every, I feel like, five years, where now you have the increase in power spending with diverse groups, you have new generations that are looking at media consumption very differently from their end, whether that’s multiple screens at the same time, which I don’t know how they keep up, or just having that type of differentiation. And so with that, we created Audience Resonance Index to make sure that we were providing advertisers as well as agencies opportunities to connect with the speed of culture. We wanna make sure we’re right there with them. So having those data signals allows us to understand based on those broad-based demographics, who is actually converting? Who is buying those products? Who is also making sure that it’s relevant messaging? And when we say culture, we don’t mean black, white. We don’t mean Asian, Hispanic. We’re really meaning the commonality that a segment has, that they share across different ethnicities and races. So for example, where are you from, Richard? Seattle. Nice. So in Seattle, there’s a certain type of… I would say cafe and coffee culture there, right? Versus other places in the United States. I mean, I’ve heard the stories of different cafes that you all have. I’m not going to go into it right now because I don’t know who’s listening, but some are kind of like nightclubs. And it’s really interesting to me that People in Seattle, doesn’t matter what your background is, you know that. There is a culture behind that. So if I’m trying to reach this coffee drinker, how am I going to resonate with them to get them to convert for my brand? And that is what Ari provides advertisers and agencies. it’s interesting that culture has evolved so much in what’s probably a very small span of time in the whole scheme of things from things like ethnicity to the types of things we do and the types of things we enjoy on that note your platform offers access to very segmented audiences though actually by income ethnicity age and lifestyle how do you ensure these insights remain useful but also respectful of consumer privacy? Yes. So with AARI, we are PI compliant. All the data that we have in there is either based on an API key or based on opted-in audiences. So it’s, like I said, PI compliant. And they say it’s a double opt-in whether or not they want their data to be part of the AARI platform. part of marketing as well. We make sure that we don’t provide any information in terms of name or address of that audience. So when we work with our partners for upcoming campaigns, they don’t have the insight into Crystal Foot lives in Atlanta and has this much money. They really see that segment ABC would convert because I shopped at Costco or that I’m an executive. And that’s how we’re able to provide that privacy. Many brands, and this is probably going to be the understatement of the day, and I’ll try not to laugh a little as I say it, but many brands struggle to translate raw data into authentic engagement. Some way more than others, but that’s a subject for another time, probably not on a podcast. What role does smarter AI play in bridging that gap? So we have a lot of data at our fingertips. And to be honest, we don’t need any more data. We just need a platform to really take that data and understand what type of segments, what type of learnings we can gather from that. And so it’s that understanding that allows us to have successful campaigns. When you have all this data that you’re sitting on, which in this industry, we have a lot of it, and a lot of players that provide that data, and we’re not able to really uncover and decode audiences from that data, then we’re gonna go back to the 1960s where we’re just targeting based on those broad-based demos, because we don’t have the right team, data scientist team, to decode those audiences, but also looking at, and I love data scientists, and I’m not saying that there’s not a place for them, because there is, definitely, but when we’re looking at AI and how it’s transforming that data and also providing a quicker way to get that data, I think that is something that we should be utilizing, especially the data scientists. We need human power behind this, but we also need AI to work with us to provide that in a very expedited way. I could go back and never find another guest on this show that has ever said, we don’t need more data. That’s a pretty great statement. I’m not sure there is more data. So that’s actually refreshing to hear because after a while you’re kind of like, I don’t really know what else you need to know from me. Exactly. Marketers often feel pressured to jump on whatever’s trending, you know, and that’s probably not unique to marketers, but to say the least, marketers always feel that pressure. How do you help clients stop chasing cultural moments and instead anticipate what might or will matter next? It’s kind of, and I’m going to use a term that the Gen Z generation uses, it’s cringe to me when I see something that’s popular in social media, TikTok, Instagram, and then all of a sudden I see a lot of brands, hundreds of brands following suit, trying to be cool. And my question to the brand is always, but is that your audience you’re trying to reach? you’re spending millions of dollars and also poor social media and also just media activation team that they have to stop everything that they’re doing to hurry up and follow this trend for an audience that’s not even yours or also messaging that’s not really promoting what you have as a company. Right. And so to me, that’s not that’s not relevant. That’s not going to have any resonance with your audience. And actually, you’re doing more of a reach play, which we’ve seen studies say that Brands, they waste around 40% reaching their unintended audience or on platforms that don’t make sense to reach their audience. So with that, we’re looking at the data signals for either any type of, I would say social, economic, political type of social listening, sentiment listening that is available in our platform to determine what future audience we should be tapping into not because of trends but because of chatter because of what people are doing at the moment or will be doing based on their search inquiries and that’s how we’re reaching those audiences not because of the latest meme and because it’s cool to just do it Well, on that note, do you have an example of how understanding a cultural value versus a surface level trend has driven more meaningful connection between a brand and audience? Let’s look at the Taylor Swift example, right? When she got engaged. That’s the most recent one when she got engaged and a lot of brands were falling back. They were saying, Oh, you know, look at these two bottles. For example, if they had like, you know, a CPG brand, this is the teacher and this is the English teacher and this is the gym teacher. And that was it. But at that time it was really great. If you want it, if that was your audience, you’re trying to reach. to really talk about the products you have. For example, a curated type of, I would say, product that would align with Taylor Swift and what you think she might have at her engagement party for brands. Or, oh, we have a… promotion that we’re running to celebrate Taylor Swift’s engagement where you can get 20% off or whatever her favorite number is to get people to buy your product for that discount code because they’re excited. Again, but if that is your audience you’re trying to reach. So I think in the sense of using it that way, but just to come up with creative and say, I’m your English teacher, I’m your gym teacher. What is that doing for your brand? What is that doing? Some brands took it too far and utilized certain words that didn’t make sense, that were kind of, again, cringe. for the brand and to recognize Taylor Swift’s engagement. Like I think one brand said, she said yeast. And it was like, whoa, shouldn’t have said that. That’s really disgusting. So let’s rethink that. Let’s not be so fast to chase trends where we’re not considering the messaging we’re putting out there. Amazing. I feel like I need to go look that up, but I’m almost horrified to do so. How do you see the relationship between cultural intelligence and AI evolving over the next few years? And what will successful marketers be doing differently, do you think? So I know that AI is very polarizing when it comes to culture and people talk about the biases that AI has. However, AI is really whatever you put in is going to be the output. So if you’re doing the coding behind those cultural entails that you want AI to provide you with, then you have to make sure that your coding provides cultural thought leadership and cultural insight. So making sure that you have a team where they don’t have a monolithic approach to understanding audiences. Because if you have that approach, then you’re going to get the same type of outputs, which is not going to culturally align with that audience you’re trying to reach. So I think that teams really should consider, if you’re trying to build AI to be more culturally fitting for the campaigns that you have, especially because these audiences are changing so rapidly and they’re dynamic. They’re not static. They’re not demographics of adults 18 to 34 anymore. They have feelings. They have certain cultural trends they follow. They’re human beings. then look at the team that is building that AI tool for you. And if you’re going to partner with an outside team, a third party to help you build that, make sure that they’re culturally relevant in the sense of they know what’s going on. They’re coding the AI a certain way. So that way there won’t be any errors. Now, am I saying AI is perfect? Definitely not, but it is going to provide you with more opportunities and also education of audiences that you never thought to reach before. You know, for CMOs or agency leaders who might be listening to this, what’s the first step they should take to begin aligning with culture in a smarter, let’s call it a more future facing way? Richard, I would say call Digital Culture Group immediately, number one. But if you don’t do that, you’re not going to call us immediately. Then I will say, you know, partner with organizations that really invest a lot and do a lot of groundwork in this type of field, like aim, like the ANAs, like eMarketer, like Advertising Week, when you have these conversations about culture and AI. But invest in those thought leaders in these spaces if you don’t want to be more vendor-based, because they will lead you to the right partnerships. They will lead you to the right resources that you need to make sure that you’re future-proofing this for your agency and your brand. Solid advice. Last question. What marketing opportunities do you foresee arriving in 2026 that have you most excited, if any? The most excited to me is to see how AI is really going to transform brands. I want to see how people step away from the broad-based demos and finally realize this is not serving us any good. I want to see a very unbiased approach into making sure that they’re reaching the right audience to move the needle. I’m looking forward to 2025 to be a test and learn. Right. Because there’s a lot of moving pieces we had to endure this year. Political changes, threats to different organizational structures that have been in the past. So seeing like what worked for us and what we should continue with to make sure that we have solid plans to reach the audiences we really need to reach. And also to make sure that we’re developing new products or new messaging to resonate better. I’m not sure if you saw, but Nike just came out with a new campaign slogan. And I think it was called, why not? Instead of just do it. And they want to address the new generation and how that new generation was more anxiety prone because they felt pressure to do things. And so changing that to just like, why not? I think was a great opportunity to reach that new generation and speak to them with that resonance, that connection they need for that younger generation. That’s a fascinating example. I actually did see that just a couple of weeks ago. I was in a Nike store and noticed that up on the walls and thought, what a great pivot to prompt me rather than order me. Exactly. Pretty, pretty fresh perspective. Thanks so much for doing this. If one wanted to find out more about yourself and Digital Culture Group, where should they go? They can reach me at crystal at digitalculture.group or LinkedIn crystalfoot, F-O-O-T-E. And feel free to, you know, either get a demo of Ari or just learn more about the solutions we have at Digital Culture Group. Thank you so much for your time, Richard. I appreciate you. Absolutely. My pleasure. This was, this was great. Thank you.
