How a Major Media Company Drove +19% Ad Sales Growth

Turning Cultural Intelligence Into a Sales Advantage

The Challenge

ACME Media’s ad sales organization was hitting familiar headwinds:

• Ad sales momentum was slowing
• Advertisers were asking increasingly nuanced questions about:
  • Gen Z and multicultural reach
  • Cultural relevance during key moments
  • Language, messaging, and authenticity
• Competing media sellers were telling the same reach-and-frequency story

The SVP of Ad Sales knew the team needed to move from transactional selling to a more consultative, insight-led approach — without slowing the sales motion.

The Insight

Advertisers don’t just want reach. They want confidence.

ACME recognized that to win larger commitments, sellers needed to show:

• How advertisers actually resonated with young & diverse audiences
• Where cultural gaps were limiting performance
• Why ACME’s properties could deliver stronger outcomes
  

Cultural intelligence became the unlock.

The Solution

Embedding Cultural Intelligence Into Ad Sales

ACME partnered with Collage to integrate cultural intelligence directly into its ad sales motion – in a way that was repeatable, seller-friendly, and scalable across categories and properties.

What changed:

• Sellers gained visibility into brand resonance across key cultural segments, including multicultural, generational, and life-stage audiences
• The team could evaluate not just ACME’s audience strength — but how prospective advertisers resonated with those same audiences
• Insights teams worked alongside sales to translate data into advertiser-ready narratives

Execution

From Insight to Sales Enablement

Together, ACME and Collage implemented a scalable, repeatable sales program:

• Category & Property Playbooks
  • How to position cultural relevance by vertical
  • Best practices for reaching specific cultural segments
  • Client-ready case studies tied to ROI
• Custom Close Conversations
  • Seller-led, advertiser-specific cultural insights
  • Clear articulation of how advertising with ACME could improve resonance and performance
• Sales Activation
  • Program launched at Sales Kick-Off
  • Cultural intelligence embedded into everyday sales workflows

The Results

+19% Increase in Ad Sales Revenue

After one year:

• Ad sales revenue increased by 19%
• Advertisers committed more spend with greater confidence
• ACME differentiated clearly versus competing media properties

The SVP of Ad Sales directly attributed the revenue lift to Collage’s culture-centric sales program.

Cultural intelligence became a core sales tool, not a one-off insight.