We meet CultureSync Media founder Timmy Bankole, formerly of SCMP, discusses why cultural insight and audience understanding are fast becoming the most valuable currencies in modern advertising...

Timmy Bankole has a wide range of experience across the ad tech spectrum, counting roles at Blis, PHD and South China Morning Post, and has recently founded agency CultureSync Media. In this Q&A, Timmy shares how agencies can move beyond generic targeting to uncover the deeper cultural codes shaping consumer behaviour.

How do you define cultural relevance in the context of modern advertising, and why do you think it’s becoming such a critical differentiator for agencies today?

For us, cultural relevance is about creating work that feels genuinely rooted in the lived realities, values, and tensions of the audiences we serve, so the idea doesn’t just reach people; it belongs to their world. It means understanding the cultural codes beneath behaviour: how people talk, what they joke about, what they’re sensitive to, and how history and identity shape the way they read a message, not just who they are on a media plan.

We’re operating in a world that’s moving, and mixing, faster than ever. As of 2024, an estimated 304 million people, or about 3.7% of the world’s population, live outside their country of birth, nearly double the number of international migrants in 1990. Between 1990 and 2020 alone, the number of people living outside their birth country grew by roughly 83%, far outpacing global population growth. For brands, this means that almost every audience is now shaped by migration, travel, and multicultural identities; you’re rarely speaking to just one culture at a time.

When that complexity isn’t understood, we see the kind of missteps that have made headlines in recent years, like a large fashion retailer's campaign that showed a Black child wearing a "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle" hoodie, which triggered global criticism and forced the brand to pull the ad and apologise.

That image didn’t just 'miss the mark'; it collided with a long history of racist 'monkey' slurs against Black people, and it did so in a world where audiences can respond instantly and publicly. Today, people expect brands to understand not only their purchasing behaviour but also their context, their pain points, and their pride, and they reward or reject brands accordingly.

This is why cultural relevance has become such a critical differentiator for agencies. Traditional models - broad targeting, a single global asset, and a few generic personas, don’t cut through in a landscape where communities are vocal, connected, and highly attuned to representation. Agencies now need to go beyond surface-level demographics into real cultural understanding: Who is this for, really? What histories and power dynamics sit in the background? How might this land in Lagos, Hong Kong, or London for audiences who move between places and platforms every day?

Our answer is to build cultural insight into the core of the process rather than treat it as a last-minute check. We focus on decoding the deeper narratives driving behaviour, co-creating with local and diaspora voices, and designing creative that can travel across markets without losing nuance. When agencies work this way, cultural relevance stops being a defensive measure and becomes a strategic advantage. The difference between work that simply fills media space and work that actually earns attention, trust, and long-term affinity in a globally mobile world.

What strategies or frameworks does CultureSync use to uncover meaningful cultural insights that go beyond surface-level demographics or trends?

Cultural insight is something we build through a structured process, not something we 'feel' our way into. In the context of modern advertising, our goal is to move from 'Who are they on a slide?' to 'How does their world actually work?' So we talk about frameworks, people, and technology working together.

• Cultural mapping and semiotics

We start with cultural mapping and semiotic analysis to decode the symbols, language, and stories already shaping a category or community. Instead of just tracking trends, we ask: What ideas about status, care, gender, race, success, or rebellion are already in circulation? Where are the sensitive red lines, and where is the white space a brand can own? This gives us a narrative map we can use to judge whether an idea will feel respectful, relevant, or completely off-key in a given culture.

• Archetypes and narrative roles

We then use brand and cultural archetype thinking to clarify the role a brand is allowed to play in people’s lives. Is this brand a Caregiver, a Rebel, a Guide, a Creator, an Everyperson? Once that role is clear, we look at how that archetype is expressed differently across cultures - what 'care' looks like in Lagos vs. Hong Kong vs. London, for example and design stories that match both the brand’s core and the audience’s expectations.

• Audience insight beyond demographics

On the audience side, we go beyond basic demographics and interest tags. We look at real communities: who is talking about a topic, what else they care about, which creators they trust, and how those circles overlap. That lets us identify cultural 'clusters' (diaspora communities, subcultures, scenes) that a traditional media plan would treat as one homogenous segment, even though they experience the world very differently.

• Diverse team as a core 'tool'

All of this only works because our team is intentionally diverse across cultures, markets, and identities. In practice, that means workshops where people can say, "This line is fine in one market, but in my community it reads as dismissive," or "This visual echoes a stereotype you may not see if you didn’t grow up with it." Lived experience becomes a quality-control layer over every framework we use.

• Cultural AI solution as an early-warning and insight system

We then layer in our cultural AI solution, which scans large amounts of cultural data, language shifts, memes, recurring storylines, and emerging symbols across different regions and communities. It helps us spot early signals: what’s resonating, what’s becoming cliché, where sensitivity is rising, and how conversations differ between, say, Gen Z diaspora communities and home-market audiences. The key is that AI gives us patterns at scale, but interpretation stays human: our strategists and creatives sit with those patterns, pressure-test them against their own cultural knowledge, and turn them into directions the client can actually use.

How do you see the relationship between creative strategy and cultural insight evolving, especially as brands try to balance global consistency with local resonance?

We see creative strategy and cultural insight becoming inseparable - two sides of the same brief rather than two separate stages. Creative used to start with a global platform and then "check" local relevance at the end; now, the most effective work starts with cultural truth and builds the global idea around that, not the other way around.

• From “adaptation” to co-authored ideas

For global brands, the old model was: set a universal idea, then translate and resize it for different markets. Today, we’re moving toward what a lot of people call "glocalisation": a clear global core, but with local teams and communities actively shaping how that core shows up. That means creative strategy doesn’t hand down a fixed asset; it defines the non‑negotiables (purpose, voice, visual DNA) and then partners with cultural insight to co-author ideas with local markets, creators, and communities.

• Global consistency = values; local resonance = expression

We think of global consistency as being about values and promise, not identical executions. The most successful brands hold a stable centre - what they stand for and how they behave - while allowing the storytelling, faces, humour, and even product focus to flex by culture. McDonald’s and Coca‑Cola are classic examples: the promise stays the same, but menus, visuals, and narratives are tuned to local rituals and tastes. Creative strategy’s job is to define that spine; cultural insight’s job is to script the chapters differently in each place.

How CultureSync builds this into our process.

Cultural insight sits upstream of the creative brief, not as a last‑minute filter. We use cultural-mapping and semiotic tools to understand the codes in a category, then work with our diverse team and proprietary cultural AI to see how those codes shift across France, Hong Kong, London, or New York. AI gives us pattern recognition at scale - emerging symbols, narratives, sensitivities - while our people apply lived experience to decide what’s meaningful, what’s risky, and where the white space is. That combination lets us write creative platforms that are built to flex by market from day one.

• Where it’s heading next

As brands become more data‑ and AI‑driven, we see creative strategy and cultural insight converging into a single, continuous loop: listen, interpret, create, localise, listen again. Global consistency will come less from rigid templates and more from a strong centre of gravity. Clear principles about representation, tone, and values, while local resonance will be achieved through ongoing collaboration with local teams, communities, and creators. Agencies that can architect that loop, rather than just ship "global toolkits", will be the ones that keep their work both recognisable everywhere and truly relevant somewhere.

What are some of the most common pitfalls you’ve seen when agencies or brands misread cultural cues, and how can a deeper audience understanding help avoid them?

One of the biggest pitfalls we see is that brands still treat culture as a backdrop instead of a living context, with very public consequences when they get it wrong. When agencies misread cultural cues, it usually comes down to shallow research, narrow teams, and a rush to "join the conversation" without understanding who that conversation actually belongs to.

The most common pitfalls

• Stereotypes instead of specificity

Campaigns lean on clichés - how a "typical" Black family, Asian consumer, or Muslim woman looks or behaves, rather than real, textured lives, which makes people feel reduced and disrespected.

• 'Jokes' that punch down

Dolce & Gabbana’s chopsticks ads in China or Swatch and American Eagle’s recent controversies are good examples of humour that read as mocking, not playful—because they ignored the history and power dynamics behind the images.

• Dangerous language and symbols

Lines like "White is purity" or slogans such as "Sometimes, lighter is better" show how a phrase that looks harmless in a boardroom can carry racist or colourist baggage in the real world.

• Ignoring local meanings altogether

From product names that mean "prostitute" in another language to hand gestures or symbols that are offensive in certain cultures, skipping basic cultural checks can turn a launch into a PR crisis.

How deeper audience understanding helps avoid them.

Deeper audience understanding means three things working together:

• Real cultural insight, not just translation

We look at values, histories, taboos, and aspirational stories in each audience—not just what they buy, but what they live through—so we can see why a 'fun' idea might actually land as disrespectful or tone-deaf.

• Diverse humans in the room

Many of the worst scandals point back to the same root cause: approval processes and creative teams that don’t reflect the people they’re trying to reach. Our own diverse team is there to say, "This line, image, or joke has a history you’re missing, here’s how it feels from inside the culture."

• Structured checks plus cultural AI

We combine frameworks (like semiotic and cultural-sensitivity reviews) with our cultural AI solution to scan language, symbols, and narratives at scale, picking up early warning signs of themes that are sensitive or overused in specific communities. That gives us both a wide-angle view and a very human sense-check before anything goes out.

When brands invest in that depth, they’re not just avoiding the next X (Twitter) storm; they’re building campaigns that feel like they were made with people, not just at them. In a world where 72% of consumers say they prefer brands that show cultural awareness in their ads, that level of understanding isn’t just ethical; it’s a competitive advantage.

As data-driven decision-making dominates advertising, how can agencies ensure that human and cultural understanding continues to inform and enrich their strategies?

Agencies can keep human and cultural understanding at the centre of data-driven work by redesigning how strategy is done, not just which tools are used. That starts with treating data as one input into creativity and judgment, rather than the destination.

• Put humans back into the brief

Use data to frame questions, not to pre‑decide answers. Quantitative signals (views, clicks, sentiment, search trends) should trigger deeper qualitative work: interviews, cultural safaris, community conversations.

Build time into every brief for "context sessions" with people who actually live in the culture you’re targeting. Local teams, creators, and community leaders before locking strategy.

• Combine analytics with cultural frameworks

Pair dashboards with cultural tools like semiotic analysis, archetypes, and cultural-mapping so you can interpret why certain messages or visuals are resonating or backfiring.

Make cultural-sensitivity and representation checks a formal stage in the process, not a last-minute review, so you’re interrogating implications early.

• Build truly diverse, empowered teams

Ensure teams can, in a way, reflect the audiences you’re trying to reach - across culture, race, gender, geography, and class; so someone in the room can say, "This reads differently in my world."

Give those people real decision-making power, not just a token “review”, so their lived experience can override a flattering metric when needed.

• Use AI and data as scouts, not pilots

Let AI and analytics surface patterns, anomalies, and emerging themes at scale, but require that human strategists and creatives interpret what is meaningful, what is noise, and what is risky.

Resist optimising solely to short-term metrics (CTR, watch time) when they conflict with brand values or long-term trust; use cultural insight as a counterweight.

• Make “brand DNA × audience reality” the north star

Anchor decisions in a clear understanding of the brand’s DNA; its history, values, tensions - and then pressure-test that against real audience realities, not idealised personas.

Treat every campaign as a relationship moment: ask how this will feel to someone living in that culture, on that day, in that context, not just how it will perform in a report.