During SXSW this year, we brought together brands, creators, and marketing leaders for a roundtable on one big question: how do you turn cultural relevance into real commercial impact?

The best conversations and insights come from intentional, intimate conversations, and our roundtable was the perfect setting for this. 

AG1, Kimberly-Clark, and Audible led the conversation to a group of brands, marketing leaders and creators. We discussed how they are navigating the combining of culture, community, and creators to drive conversions and prove the ROI of Influencer Marketing. 

You can watch our vlog from the session here…

Here are some of the key learnings from the session. 

“Culture is a summary of what communities care about.” 

For brands, this means moving beyond broad audiences and thinking in terms of specific groups – whether that’s marathon runners, fantasy novel obsessives, or something else entirely. 

“Culture to me is the summary of what a community cares about. It's like a flowing thing that changes by the second.” Kim Tipton, Senior Social Media Manager, Kimberly-Clark.

Showing up in culture requires understanding whether your brand has the right to participate. That comes from deep social listening. Staying on top of what’s trending is a start, but you need to understand the conversations surrounding them, your consumers' behaviors day to day, and the creators who are inspiring them. 

Brands don’t automatically belong in every cultural moment. There is a distinction – although often blurred – between adding value and interrupting culture. Audience data plays a critical role. Decisions on which trends to engage with should be signals from your audience, not internal pressure to react quickly. 

Proving ROI 

One of the most common challenges echoing around the room was how to justify social-first, creator-led work to stakeholders focused on traditional metrics.

Proving the value of Influencer Marketing can often be particulary challenging within established brands and legacy organizations.

Starting small means you can earn trust and prove impact. 

Testing creative ideas with smaller budgets allows teams to gather engagement data, sentiment, and direct audience feedback. These insights can then be used to build the case for scaling campaigns.

“A human being's time is not made to be ROI for your business.”

The traditional model of broadcasting messages at scale is being replaced by consumers investing in ongoing conversations with the communities they have built. Audiences decide what’s worth their time and skip what isn’t.

“How brands respond to [trends] should be about creating structures that will help them succeed in the long term.” Jennifer Quigley-Jones, CEO, Digital Voices

Cross-Functional Strategy

This shift away from flashy ads in multi-million dollar media slots requires closer collaboration across teams. Influencer, paid media, and brand partnerships must work together to ensure content is not only culturally relevant but also amplified effectively and built for performance from the outset.

Influencer and paid media teams especially must collaborate from the start of a campaign to negotiate usage rights upfront, enabling seamless content boosting and testing. 

“We're analyzing content as it goes live, especially when it comes to influencer content. If it’s off, it could be boosted. So we make sure we have the contract in place to be able to secure 30, 60, 90-day rights from the creator.” Kim Tipton, Senior Social Media Manager, Kimberly-Clark. 

“Invest in Frameworks, Not Just Campaigns”

Brands need the ability to respond quickly and effectively to cultural moments, but this means adapting internal processes – from legal approvals to content production – to respond effectively while staying true to brand identity.

“A lot of what we do is speaking and talking to the community to understand social listening and figure out what makes sense and how to be a part of those moments.” Ngozi Musa, Senior Manager, Brand Partnerships, AG1. 

Conclusion

Everyone in the room had the opportunity to share their challenge and receive advice from those with similar or totally different experiences with creator marketing. 

The ultimate takeaway was that turning culture into commerce starts with brands needing to understand communities more deeply and create systems and infrastructure that allow them to show up in ways that feel both relevant and effective.

Want to chat more about turning cultural moments into commercial impact with creators? Reach out at hello@digitalvoices.com.