Currently, the company is having conversations with potential capital providers and strategic partners to expand its network. Culture+ is looking to acquire or partner with companies in the research, data analytics, AI, and media space and is currently in negotiations to purchase a digital media company. Each company within Culture+ will have its own P&L.
“The challenge in this space is that there is a lot of fragmentation with a lot of mom-and-pop and small agencies, and if you’re trying to service a Fortune 500 company, there is, of course, concern over the ability to execute with scale,” Arbelaez said. “So the infrastructure of the ecosystem is intended to bring the best-in-class partners and solutions, but give [clients] the comfort that it is an ecosystem that has the scalability due to the network.”
While 60% of its clients are in the healthcare space, Culture+ also works with clients such as Diageo, PepsiCo, Google, Kellanova and WK Kellogg. Currently, Culture+ has around 100 employees and is about 90% diverse. The holding company will look to add only agencies that are minority-owned.
Valletta and Arbelaez, who are Colombian, said they define inclusive marketing as going beyond a traditional multicultural marketing scope and targeting segments of populations—whether by race or other identifiers such as age or interests—to maximize growth for clients.