The agency we work for, Virtue, is definitely one such cultural agency (in fact, it was born out of Vice Media 20 years ago, so we were – um – of Over the past five years, we’ve spoken with dozens of brands about their challenges, and one question has come up repeatedly: “How do we know if we’re making the right decisions when it comes to culture?”
With countless channels, niches, and content creators interconnected across the globe, where does a brand start? How do you know what will work for your brand?
So we set out to answer that question, and the result (to our credit) was Pigeon.
We call it a cultural accelerator for brands. Instead of trying campaign after campaign looking for what “works” in culture, Pigeon contains an AI-powered big data engine trained to identify interconnected cultural areas and drive new growth for your brand.
It helps brands discover the underlying niches and networks that create meaning and value in the world – that is, where brands can contribute real meaning and value, rather than simply getting in the way or annoying.
What’s most interesting is that Pigeon is able to identify cultural space before its competitors notice it – the ultimate first-mover advantage.
Okay, enough chatter, how does it actually work?
As a real-world example, we decided to look at an industry that is completely trapped in standardized practices: the luxury jewelry industry. We looked at Tiffany & Co., Bvlgari, Cartier, and Van Cleef & Arpels.
According to Pigeon, Bvlgari has the highest cultural capital (60.77 on our Cultural Capital Index), closely followed by Tiffany & Co. (54.05).
Dig deeper and you’ll find that all these brands leverage similar talent to drive their cultural capital: Each leans on a celebrity name who epitomizes “new luxury”: Dua Lipa for Bulgari, Timothée Chalamet for Cartier.
How are these brands trying to differentiate themselves? Jewelry is inextricably linked to love, especially when it comes to gift-giving. As a brand, Pigeon is able to serve the cultural ecosystem of love, which is where it gets interesting.
Instead of simply tapping on celebrities, we’re suddenly thrown into the world of limerence, which has grown exponentially since 2020, or Korean and Indian romantic comedies, or hundreds of other clusters that wouldn’t show up on our radar without a tool like Pigeon.
This not only allows brands to activate fanbases that are closely associated with these cultural elements, but also see them as elements that can influence the broader cultural dialogue around love and romance. For example, Korean romantic comedies are getting a lot of attention because they air on Netflix. While they may not have the same craze as K-Pop in the West, it’s clear that people are watching them because they’re interested in the Korean perspective on love.
If it sounds like we’re bragging, it’s because we’re genuinely excited about what we’ve built and its ability to objectively answer the questions brand owners pose to us every week. We’ve seen a lot of novel uses for AI in our world, but we think we’ve built something much more: a tool that marketers can use to navigate complexity and enter the cultural economy with confidence.
Of course, once it knows where to direct its cultural power, a brand needs to know what to do. Luckily, with its presence within Virtue, Pigeon has that covered, too.