Marketing and advertising agency AV Communications (AVC) has launched a new Cultural Intelligence Framework for influencer marketing, designed to help brands work with multicultural audiences by providing practical insights. The four-pillar framework addresses common gaps in conventional influencer marketing tools by incorporating cultural assessment, influencer matching, sensitivity review protocols, and performance optimization tailored for diverse audience segments.

The service expansion comes as research shows 57% of consumers stop purchasing from brands following culturally insensitive marketing, leading to an average revenue drop of 35% within the first quarter. Based in Canada and founded in 2003, AVC has developed this framework after analyzing thousands of multicultural marketing campaigns across more than 20 segments and languages.

“What we found is brands expanding into influencer marketing knew the sense of community and engagement through culture was stronger than on mainstream platforms,” explains Joycelyn David, owner and CEO of AVC, who acquired the company in 2019. “They wanted to engage, but how to get there was the challenge.”

The Cultural Gap in Influencer Marketing

This service expansion comes as brands shift portions of their marketing budgets from traditional paid media to creator-led content. “One trend I’ve seen is a shift of paid media dollars from traditional channels, where people scroll past ads, to investing in community-based, creator-led media,” Joycelyn says.

But this investment hasn’t been matched with suitable tools for execution, especially with multicultural audiences. “Brands and agencies didn’t have tools to execute faster or better,” Joycelyn explains.

The challenge is especially clear across languages and cultures. “Most brands don’t know there are two separate languages appealing to two separate segments within an audience,” she says, pointing to Chinese marketing as an example. “Yes, they’re reaching the Chinese audience, but is it in Mandarin or Cantonese?”

These cultural elements extend beyond language to calendars, customs, and sensitivities that mainstream analytics often miss. As Joycelyn notes, without proper guidance, brands risk costly mistakes that damage revenue and reputation.

Inside the Cultural Intelligence Framework

AVC’s framework combines the four interconnected capabilities to eliminate cultural blind spots throughout the influencer marketing process. The approach moves sequentially from assessment to matching to review to optimization, addressing cultural intelligence at every stage of campaign development and execution.

“You cannot skip these steps,” Joycelyn emphasizes. “It’s risk management. For regulated industries and large entities, this is brand reputation, compliance, and risk control.”

The first step, Cultural Intelligence Assessment, provides brands with a cultural analysis before launching a campaign. “We give brands an assessment of their target audience through cultural trends they may overlook, things beyond Christmas, Easter, or Black Friday,” Joycelyn explains.

This draws on thousands of campaigns to identify key elements, such as seasonal events (Diwali, Double 11), channel preferences, and content opportunities. “The assessment also looks at channel strategy and content opportunities,” Joycelyn says. “Before we run, let’s look at the field first.”

The second pillar, Influencer Matching, focuses on finding creator partners who genuinely connect with target communities. Joycelyn describes it as “Tinder for influencers,” with matches based on values alignment, not just metrics.

“We use a scorecard tracking KPIs to make matches,” she explains. AI helps with data collection, but humans ensure cultural fit. “The brand and agency review the match together to decide the best way forward.”

This helps when marketers lack cultural context. “Sometimes the marketer is English-speaking and not from the culture,” Joycelyn says. “But if the baker or auto mechanic’s content resonates with the audience, you can’t get nitpicky.”

The third pillar, Cultural Review Protocol, ensures content is culturally appropriate before publication. “A lot of brands miss this step,” Joycelyn says. “It’s a sensitivity check before you push it out to thousands of people.”

She stresses that this protects a brand’s reputation, avoiding missteps like those that have affected companies such as Cracker Barrel.

AVC tests content with diverse panels representing target communities. “You don’t want to rely on one Filipino Canadian to approve an ad,” Joycelyn notes. “You need something statistically relevant.” This can be done without extending campaign timelines, while offering protection from PR crises.

The final pillar, Performance Optimization, measures performance against culturally specific benchmarks. “Where’s the benchmark for culturally led influencer content? We have it now,” Joycelyn says. “Can Google tell you the average engagement rate for a retail brand marketing luxury goods to 18-44-year-olds? I can,” she says, highlighting AVC’s dataset.

Reporting also tracks sentiment and engagement in different languages. “How do you track sentiment if you can’t understand the language or comments?” Joycelyn asks.

The optimization step enables brands to make informed decisions for future campaigns, thereby creating an improvement cycle.

Performance Advantages

According to AVC’s data shared with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), multicultural audiences engage at higher rates when campaigns reflect cultural relevance.

“On average, multicultural media performs two to three times better than mainstream media,” Joycelyn reveals. “It’s driven by the right message with cultural resonance. An English ad on a Spanish platform won’t perform as well as a Spanish ad on the same platform.”

She says this comes down to human behavior: “People identify with content. When bombarded with ads, they connect with what reflects who they are.”

International Expansion Plans

With the framework launched in North America, AVC plans to expand to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and South Asia. “There are almost no multicultural marketing agencies serving the UAE for international brands,” Joycelyn says. “Big agencies exist, but not all lead with culture at their core.”

Expanding requires adapting to local business practices. “Everything from communication styles, to meeting etiquette, to how business is conducted, differs cross-culturally,” Joycelyn explains, drawing on her work in Dubai and Hong Kong.

AVC plans to adapt through local partnerships while maintaining its four-pillar structure. “You can’t cut and paste your strategy from one market to another,” Joycelyn cautions.

Technology Development

Currently delivered as a managed service, AVC’s framework is moving toward greater tech integration. In 2023, Joycelyn founded Tulong Technologies, a MarTech [Marketing Technology] startup developing complementary tools.

“It’s a service we offer using proprietary tools,” Joycelyn explains. “My goal is to make them more available. It won’t ever be fully automated, but we’re working on AI agents for the first layer, the cultural assessment.”

Multiple systems currently feed into a single framework, forming an ecosystem of cultural data. Joycelyn envisions AI trained on AVC’s campaigns making cultural insights more accessible worldwide.

Advice for Brand Success

For brands treating culture as an afterthought, Joycelyn has clear guidance: “Look at your customer base and run the numbers. The numbers don’t lie. Diverse, multicultural young populations are today’s and tomorrow’s shoppers.”

She also stresses the importance of “getting comfortable being uncomfortable.” “As a woman of color, I’ve been in rooms where I was the only woman among white men,” she shares. “I had to learn how to bridge that culture.”

This discomfort is necessary. “Leaning into it is key. If you run away, you miss the chance to build real cultural intelligence,” Joycelyn explains. “It takes practice; seek it out instead of avoiding it.”

As influencer marketing takes a larger share of budgets, AVC’s framework offers structure and expertise for the diverse creator economy.

Joycelyn envisions cultural intelligence becoming a standard requirement. “I hope we’ll see a future where cultural intelligence is more valued than artificial intelligence,” she reflects, “and where understanding is human-based, not just technology-based.”

As she puts it, “Tech can’t be the only solution. There still needs to be a human component that makes us slow down.”

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