What if the industry has been targeting the wrong thing this whole time? Well, somewhere between an offensive green hoodie and a cultural relevance score, Joe Ligé, Founder and CEO of Culture Hive Media, believes he’s found the ad industry’s blind spot.
Instead of buying media against age, gender or income bracket, the pitch is that advertisers can now buy against cultural signals.
That means inside the communities and content where people’s actual interests live. Say a brand wanted to chase runners. They could buy against training content and race-day moments directly instead of spraying and praying within the 25-to-34 demographic hoping to catch some.
Culture Hive recently announced that its Cultural Relevance Score (CRS™) was integrated into Magnite’s ClearLine platform, enabling advertisers to do that very thing. It’s a notable bet. As third-party cookies continue eroding and generative AI answer engines reshape how people discover products, the old targeting playbook is looking increasingly threadbare.
Ligé isn’t just making a philosophical case; it’s showing up in performance. He says brands are seeing 4x ROAS and a 300% increase in retail media, noting that it requires sustained “emotional equity” investment.
