The Relevance Index: Scoring 1,200 Brands on Cultural Relevance

No objective measure of cultural relevance existed. So one strategy director built one -- automated, data-driven, and updated every week.

The Problem

Everyone talks about cultural relevance. Brands want it. Agencies promise it. But nobody can actually measure it. There is no Bloomberg terminal for culture -- no objective, data-driven way to track which brands are culturally relevant and which are just commercially successful.

The gap is significant. Commercial performance and cultural relevance are not the same thing. A brand can sell billions and have zero cultural cachet. Another can dominate conversation without selling a single product. Understanding that distinction -- and tracking it over time -- is valuable for anyone in the business of brands.

The Approach

The Relevance Index uses a hybrid scoring model that combines real data signals with AI-powered qualitative assessment. Every Wednesday at 3am UTC, a GitHub Actions pipeline runs the entire scoring process automatically:

Each brand is scored across five dimensions, each contributing to an overall score out of 100:

The scoring uses three independent GPT-4o-mini calls per batch (not one) to reduce bias and increase reliability. Wikipedia and Reddit provide the quantitative signal. The LLM provides qualitative assessment. The combination creates a more robust picture than either approach alone.

For 260 publicly traded brands, stock market data (market cap and 30-day price change) is layered in, enabling comparison between cultural relevance and financial performance.

How It Was Built

The Result

The Relevance Index now tracks 1,203 brands with individual brand pages, category pages, AI-generated insights (via Claude Sonnet), sparkline trend charts, radar comparison charts, and embeddable badge widgets. Each brand has its own OG image for social sharing.

A weekly email digest (via Buttondown) summarises the biggest movers -- brands gaining or losing cultural relevance. The entire system runs autonomously, requiring no manual intervention.

The most surprising finding has been the consistent divergence between cultural relevance and stock price. Some of the most culturally relevant brands are financially underperforming, while some commercial giants barely register culturally. That tension is where the story lives.

The Key Insight

Cultural relevance and business performance often diverge -- that tension is where the story is.

A brand like Patagonia scores exceptionally on cultural relevance -- talked about, admired, referenced -- but its commercial scale is modest compared to, say, Zara. Conversely, a brand like Oracle is commercially massive but culturally invisible. The gap between cultural weight and commercial weight is the most interesting thing The Relevance Index reveals.

For strategists, marketers, and anyone working in brands, this gap is the opportunity. Understanding where your brand sits on the cultural-commercial axis is the starting point for any meaningful strategy. The Relevance Index makes that visible for the first time.