Are You Data Rich, But Meaning Poor?

Despite having done a bunch of surveys, consulted the oracle of all your data, maybe a focus group or two, you still got blindsided with a campaign flop. Or the numbers just didn’t go where expected. The thing is, most of the research stacks marketers use are perfectly designed to make them confidently wrong about the future. So what’s a different approach.

Cultural intelligence (CQ). Keep your research stack, it is valuable and useful, but perhaps toss in some cultural intelligence. Which is research, but shouldn’t reside in your research stack. It needs to come well before that. At the point where you’re deciding what game you’re playing and where you want to play.

Surveys, analytics, focus groups, they’re all reliability-oriented research, where cultural intelligence is messy, interpretive and forward looking. Most marketing departments are geared towards the reliability side. Hey, it’s comfier. But comfort doesn’t lead to futures. But all that reliable stuff is a rearview mirror. It’s what’s happened.

Surveys confirm existing assumptions. Focus groups validate what the loudest voices want. Analytics optimise for what already worked. And LLMs (AI) synthesise the consensus view of all documented knowledge. But none of this tells you where culture is actually moving. Especially for strategy. LLMs (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) are consensus engines, working from what’s already documented and known.

Cultural intelligence, which needs to be done by humans, often using netnography, tells you what people *mean*. And more critically, what's becoming *permissible* before it becomes *measurable*. It’s where you actually need to meet your audience for the greatest effect.

Research in cultural intelligence is about what’s happening in liminal spaces, the thresholds between deeper culture and surface cultural shifts. It needs the observer to be culturally situated. To be able to move between the Reddit and Discord threads, see the patterns emerging and interpret them.

So cultural intelligence is kind of miscategorised. It’s a different category of knowledge from analytics and surveys. More like strategic intelligence than market research. It belongs upstream of campaigns, upstream of briefs, at the level where you're deciding *what game you're playing*, not how to optimise the game you're already in.

Surveys confirm you existing assumptions. Focus groups validate what the loudest voices want. Analytics optimise for what already worked. And LLMs (AI tools) synthesise the consensus view of all documented knowledge. Cultural intelligence works at the strategy level and can help improve surveys by changing what you ask. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is the layer that that gives the other layers more meaning.

So the best way to use CQ is just outside of your research stack. Keep in mind it can inform other aspects of the business as well, such as sales. CQ adds deeper context to what you already know about your audience.