Digital Culture Group Adds Creative Forecasting to Audience Resonance Index
Digital Culture Group is positioning its Audience Resonance Index as a way for marketers to assess creative before it reaches the public. In late September, the ad tech company introduced Resonance Studio, a module that forecasts how advertising may perform and identifies potential audience objections, along with recommendations for revisions.
The launch followed a September backlash over a Converse ad. The sneaker brand withdrew the creative after viewers said its imagery evoked the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. Digital Culture Group founder and CEO Crystal Foote said the episode was painful for Converse and for affected communities. The company’s new offering is intended to help brands identify risks and opportunities earlier in the creative process.
Assessing cultural response before launch
The Audience Resonance Index, or ARI, combines first- and third-party data to identify audiences likely to be interested in a product and inform how a brand might connect with them through cultural trends. Resonance Studio adds predictive creative analysis, including projected performance, possible audience critiques and suggested adjustments.
Digital Culture Group also introduced the ARI 100 Ad Pledge, offering 100 pro bono creative assessments to brands and agencies. The company says ARI draws on sources including the American Community Survey, eMarketer predictive analytics and research from Nielsen’s cultural team. It also has social-listening capabilities for conversations on Reddit, X and Meta platforms.
Foote compared the Converse ad’s assessment in ChatGPT with its result in ARI. She said ChatGPT assigned the creative a B-minus and did not recommend suppressing it on cultural grounds, while ARI gave it an F. According to Foote, ARI flagged robes and hoods as potential hate symbols and said dangling shoes could recall hanging or lynching imagery. It recommended avoiding those visual elements and showing the shoes in a box or on a shelf instead.
Foote acknowledged that because the Converse ad was already public, ARI’s assessment may have been influenced by audience reactions circulating online. The company’s stated objective is to flag culturally harmful imagery before release, not merely analyze a live controversy after it has begun.
Feedback on calls to action and representation
CARE, a humanitarian organization that began working with Digital Culture Group in September and took part in the pledge, submitted two pieces of creative for review. One was for a National Women’s Day campaign, using a previous ad about expanding opportunities for women across fields including sports, agriculture and business. Its call to action asked people to sign a pledge to level the playing field for women and girls.
Mary Kate Wilson, CARE’s associate vice president for creative and content marketing, said ARI’s feedback pointed to a need for greater specificity about what would happen after someone signed. The audience, she said, needed to know whether signatures would go to a petition or a legislator, and what difference an individual contribution could make.
CARE’s second submission told the history of the care package, which originated near the end of World War II through an American cooperative that sent food to families in Europe and later became CARE. ARI assessed the creative as culturally relevant and receptive, Wilson said, but recommended making the story more connected to the present. Viewers should be able to understand where donations go, what a package includes and whom it serves.
Vella Bioscience, a women’s health and sexual wellness brand, also participated in the pledge. Its submission promoted Meltwater, a vaginal moisturizer made with hyaluronic acid and aloe vera. President Joy Allen-Altimare said the ad was designed as an ingredient-focused product story.
Resonance Studio projected a click-through rate at 106% of Vella’s benchmark goal and estimated psychographic alignment at about 85%, according to the company’s assessment. It also identified opportunities to broaden the ad’s representation of age and race. Because the creative included only one model, ARI suggested using multiple images or a video featuring several women, Allen-Altimare said.
For Vella, the assessment also addresses the constraints of marketing intimate wellness products on platforms that limit how sexual wellness can be portrayed. Allen-Altimare said the tool could help the brand determine whether its messaging is connecting with the women it intends to reach, rather than simply reflecting the company’s own perspective.
The examples illustrate the different questions marketers may bring to creative review: whether imagery carries unintended historical associations, whether a call to action makes its impact clear, and whether an ad represents the people it aims to serve. Digital Culture Group is selling Resonance Studio as a predictive aid for those decisions, with its assessments offering guidance before creative goes live.
