Ad Tech's ARI Gave Converse's Pulled Ad an F. ChatGPT Gave It a B Minus

Ad tech company Digital Culture Group ran Converse's controversial September ad through two systems: ChatGPT graded it a B minus, while its own Audience Resonance Index gave it an F for "hate symbols" evoking KKK imagery.

The contrast is the company's pitch. Its flagship product, the Audience Resonance Index (ARI), uses first- and third-party data to determine which audiences will connect with a product — and which creative will offend them — before an ad ever runs.

In late September, Digital Culture Group launched Resonance Studio, a module that predicts how creative will perform before it goes live, down to specific critiques and fixes. Alongside it, the company launched the ARI 100 Ad Pledge, offering 100 pro bono creative assessments to brands and agencies.

What happened with Converse?

The sneaker brand faced backlash in September for an ad whose imagery many viewers said evoked the KKK and lynching. Converse pulled the ad after two weeks, but some longtime fans threw away or burned their shoes and posted it on social media.

It was "an extremely unfortunate thing for the Converse team to experience," said Crystal Foote, CEO and founder of Digital Culture Group, but also horrible for "the communities that were impacted by that."

Foote uploaded the ad to both ChatGPT and ARI. ChatGPT said it "would not classify this creative as culturally insensitive or recommend suppressing it on cultural grounds alone," and its only critique was that the sneaker depiction "could be interpreted as gender non-conforming styling."

ARI flagged "hate symbols" including robes and hoods that could evoke KKK imagery, and noted that "the dangling shoes could be read as echo of hanging or lynching imagery" and could offend Black Americans and descendants of lynching victims, Foote said, quoting the model outputs directly. Its fix: avoid white robes, cone-shaped hoods and dangling feet, and position the product in a shoebox or on a shelf.

ARI trains on data from the American Community Survey, eMarketer's predictive analytics and research from Nielsen's cultural team, Foote said. A social listening feature taps conversations on Reddit, X and Meta. ARI was likely influenced by real reactions to the already-live Converse ad — but the goal is catching that imagery pre-launch.

How are brands using it?

Humanitarian organization Care.org began working with Digital Culture Group in September through the pledge, submitting two ads: one for its National Women's Day campaign and one promoting financial contributions to care packages.

The Women's Day ad focused on "leveling the playing field" for women "from the sports field to the farm field to the conference room," said Mary Kate Wilson, Care.org's associate VP for creative and content marketing. ARI determined the audience needed more specificity — whether signatures would go to a petition or a legislator. People want to know, "What difference do I make by lending my signature to this?" Wilson said.

The care package ad, which traced the package's World War II origins, scored high on cultural relevance and receptivity. But it needed to be "more time-bound to today," Wilson said — people wanted to know where their dollars would go and who they would serve.

Can it work for sensitive categories?

Women's health and sexual wellness brand Vella Bioscience, another pledge participant, submitted an ad for Meltwater, a vaginal moisturizer with hyaluronic acid and aloe vera.

Resonance Studio projected a click-through rate of 106% of Vella's benchmark goal and estimated psychographic alignment at around 85%, said Joy Allen-Altimare, Vella's president. But it flagged room for improvement on model inclusivity: the ingredient-focused ad included only one shot with a model, and ARI suggested multiple images or a video with several women interacting.

Vella also faces strict platform rules on portraying sexual wellness products, forcing ambiguous wording around pleasure and intimacy. Resonance Studio "will help us understand if we're talking to ourselves," Allen-Altimare said, or whether the ad truly resonates with the women it's trying to reach.

For brands still weighing whether AI can judge culture, the Converse grading gap offers the sharpest test case yet.