urVETTED Launches to Quantify Cultural Relevance in Marketing

LOS ANGELES, CA – April 09, 2026 – A new venture founded by seasoned marketing executives is launching today with a bold mission: to replace guesswork with data in the high-stakes arena of inclusive marketing. The company, urVETTED, has introduced a platform designed to provide cultural intelligence and inclusion validation, offering brands, agencies, and media companies a new way to measure how their work connects with diverse audiences before it ever goes public.

Founded by industry veterans Carlos Santiago, Gilbert Davila, Lisette Asuaga, and Karla Lucia, urVETTED emerges from its predecessor, the Cultural Inclusion Accelerator, to establish what it calls a new category in marketing analytics. The company aims to provide a data-backed framework for evaluating creative, creator partnerships, media placements, and even AI-generated content, moving the industry beyond reliance on intuition.

“Marketing has long relied on instinct when it comes to cultural relevance. But instinct isn’t enough in today’s environment,” said Carlos Santiago, co-founder of urVETTED. “We built urVETTED to give brands a clear, data-backed understanding of how effectively their work will resonate across audiences, so they can move forward with confidence and proof that it works.”

The Science of Connection

At the core of urVETTED's offering is a multi-signal approach that blends real consumer feedback with rigorous analysis. The platform combines insights from cultural anthropologists and data scientists with advanced AI models to deliver both qualitative and quantitative validation. This integrated system evaluates content against seven key demographic segments: Asian, Black, Gen Pop, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, and White Non-Hispanic.

The company’s engine is powered by a suite of proprietary methodologies, most notably the Cultural Insights Impact Measure™ (CIIM™). Developed in partnership with the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), CIIM™ has already built a formidable track record. The methodology is based on a database of over 1.1 million cultural evaluations across nearly 2,500 ads, creating a robust set of industry benchmarks. It assesses content based on ten cultural attributes, including authenticity, cultural pride, positive reflections, and representation.

This framework allows urVETTED to generate specific scores, identify potential risk flags, and provide optimization recommendations tied directly to key performance indicators like brand perception, loyalty, and purchase intent. The goal is to give marketers actionable intelligence to refine their campaigns for maximum impact and minimum risk.

The Business Case for Cultural Validation

The launch comes at a time when the business case for inclusive marketing has never been stronger, yet the fear of missteps often leads to brand paralysis. Research consistently shows that consumers, particularly younger generations and diverse communities, gravitate toward brands that demonstrate a genuine commitment to inclusion. Studies indicate that a majority of consumers have taken action, such as purchasing a product, after seeing an ad they considered inclusive.

urVETTED’s own foundational research through CIIM™ puts a hard number on this phenomenon. Attribution studies conducted with AIMM found that cultural relevance can be responsible for up to 66% of a campaign's sales lift in the CPG and retail sectors, and 55% of the lift in auto showroom visits. The data further suggests that culturally relevant advertising can increase purchase intent by 2.8 times and improve brand perception by 3.8 times.

By quantifying the link between cultural relevance and business outcomes, urVETTED aims to shift the conversation from D&I as a corporate social responsibility initiative to a core driver of growth. The platform is designed to help agencies defend creative ideas with objective data and enable media companies to prove the value of their diverse platforms and content environments.

Navigating a Complex Landscape

The marketing world is navigating increasing complexity. On one hand, brands face pressure to connect authentically with a mosaic of consumer identities. On the other, they operate in a polarized environment where any effort can be scrutinized, and inauthentic attempts at inclusion are quickly called out, leading to significant reputational and financial damage.

The rise of generative AI adds another layer of uncertainty. While powerful, AI models can perpetuate biases present in their training data, making human-led validation more critical than ever to ensure AI-generated outputs are culturally appropriate and inclusive.

“At a time when brands are navigating increasing complexity, from diverse audiences to AI-generated content—the stakes have never been higher,” said co-founder Lisette Asuaga. “We bring together human expertise and real consumer input to ensure marketing is not only inclusive, but relevant and hence, effective.”

urVETTED positions itself as a crucial safeguard in this environment, offering a systematic way to vet content before it reaches the public. This pre-emptive validation can help brands avoid costly blunders, build genuine trust, and turn potential cultural minefields into opportunities for authentic connection.

A New Standard from Industry Vanguards

The credibility of urVETTED is significantly bolstered by the deep expertise of its four co-founders. Carlos Santiago, Gilbert Davila, Lisette Asuaga, and Karla Lucia are not newcomers; they are widely recognized as pioneers and leaders in multicultural and inclusive marketing. Their collective resumes include senior roles at global giants like Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and The Walt Disney Company.

Crucially, they are also the architects behind the ANA's AIMM, the industry’s leading advocacy group for inclusive marketing. Their work with AIMM, including the development of CIIM™, has already laid the groundwork for a more accountable and effective approach to reaching diverse consumers. The launch of urVETTED represents the commercialization and expansion of this vision, moving from industry-wide advocacy to a targeted enterprise solution.

Their combined experience provides an intimate understanding of the challenges brands and agencies face, from securing budget for multicultural initiatives to proving the ROI of inclusive strategies. urVETTED is the culmination of decades spent on the front lines, built to address the specific market gaps they have long identified. With this launch, the founders are making a definitive statement that the era of instinct-driven cultural marketing is over, and a new standard of data-driven validation has arrived.