Overtone and Culture Pulse
Plus we partner with PubMatic
Overtone partners with PubMatic
Overtone is thrilled to announce our partnership with PubMatic, a major platform for monetizing media through advertising.
Together, we're redefining the future of transparent, content-first audience curation. Overtone's contextual intelligence enables brands to connect their investments with the narratives, communities, and cultural moments that matter, while simultaneously creating more value for publishers across the open web. We are excited that people can use our data to drive ROI for advertisers while supporting quality journalism, culture and consumer trust.
Read the full release
Overtone and Culture Pulse
From the partnership announced above, you can see that journalism is important to advertisers, and Overtone is keen to help highlight the value.
But what exactly is that value? The role of journalism in preserving democracy often gets the attention, but more tangibly, news has the value of bringing together communities and helping them understand what is going on. The “media” is a medium between a person (or audience or potential customer) and the world.
Looking at it this way, the articles we read and the podcasts we listen to are like measuring the heartbeat of culture happening all around us. Being able to connect with audiences as they experience culture, from the Super Bowl to the previews before a movie, is valuable to advertisers. It is the focus of Overtone’s new product to help advertisers connect to and support news, Culture Pulse.
Coachella
Most advertising is currently done with the blunt instruments of keywords, but these do very little to actually understand the experience that the reader is having on their screen, wherever they are.
For a first example, pretend you are a company that wants to advertise around the annual Coachella music festival. It’s a target for food, drinks, or fancy new earbuds. As an advertiser, I can target the keyword “Coachella” or even “Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival” but that still puts me on a bunch of articles that don’t really fit my audience, like this article from Forbes about a “Golfer’s Desert Oasis“. Presumably those golfers don’t need earbuds.
Overtone allows companies to target on a more nuanced understanding of articles, including the type of articles and their tones. So instead of just targeting a keyword, I can target concert reviews from the festival itself. Moreover, let’s say my product is tied to a certain spokesperson, like Lady Gaga Oreos. I don’t want to be on the places where Lady Gaga is a passing mention, but on the places where she is a superstar. Overtone allows you to target and be part of the cultural moment when hundreds of articles are raving about Gaga and her “Genius Commentary on Fame”.
In some ways, this approach mirrors how advertising works on television. When I buy a Super Bowl ad, I know exactly what kind of experience the audience is having — they’re likely gathered around their screens, emotionally invested, and culturally tuned in. That context allows me to craft a message that resonates. Often, the ad itself might feature an NFL player or reference the game directly. It’s that shared understanding of the content and moment that enables the brand to be in meaningful conversation with culture. That aspect is sorely missing from much of online advertising.
Wimbledon
Speaking of sporting events, one of the benefits of running ads around cultural moments is being able to understand what is happening in a world that is unpredictable.
It is not difficult to imagine that Lady Gaga would get headlines around Coachella, given that she was one of the headliners. However, there is no way to know before an event like a tennis match who will come out on top and what the storylines will be. The articles written about it can help you understand what is going on without needing to sit and watch the match.
As a second example, consider last year’s Wimbledon Championships. For a brand like Uniqlo, where Novak Djokovic serves as a global ambassador, you want to be closely associated with his presence and achievements. In the chart below, which tracks sentiment over two weeks in July, you can see a spike in happiness as Djokovic celebrates his 350th Grand Slam singles match win.
But you can also see a burst of angry articles on Djokovic on July 9th. This marks a moment no brand could have predicted— the player slammed the Wimbledon crowds for cheering for his opponent, setting off a mini firestorm in the British press. If I’m Uniqlo, I might be comfortable with the controversy, but I’d likely prefer to be associated with Novak having a heartwarming moment with his daughter (another spike in “happy” signals from Overtone) rather than when he’s making headlines for complaints.
White Lotus
Sure, if I’m running an ad campaign, I want to keep an eye on my stars and steer clear when they’re involved in something I’d rather not be associated with. But the value of connecting to culture through news goes far beyond just managing risk.
With Overtone, you can uncover cultural moments as they unfold in real time. You never quite know what part of a TV show or news story will spark conversation at the digital water cooler the next day—but if you do catch it, you have the chance to reach your audience with something that feels fresh, relevant, and urgent, rather than just another piece of stale corporate messaging.
Take the show White Lotus, which aired its third season on HBO earlier this year and saw a major surge in viewership. If you’re a rival streamer like Disney+, looking to advertise your own content to that audience, you might know in advance that the show is set in Thailand or touches on themes like Buddhism. But what you don’t know is what cultural moments, memes, or inside jokes will emerge and take off. That’s the unpredictable magic of live cultural conversation—and the opportunity for marketers who are paying attention in real time.
With Overtone, you’d see that audiences had a huge reaction to a surprise appearance by actor Sam Rockwell, who was not one of the originally announced members of the cast, when both he and “cameo appearance” spiked joyful and humorous conversations around the show. Similarly, take something like the election of a new pope. You wouldn’t know the chosen name in advance, but the moment it’s announced, that name—and the newly chosen papal title—suddenly become culturally and emotionally significant. Overtone helps you spot these unpredictable but powerful moments as they happen.
Back to White Lotus, I also wouldn’t know in advance that a blender would become a major plot point in the season finale. But with Overtone, once that trend surfaces, I can act on it immediately in my own campaign—assuming I’m not deterred by the fact that “poison” began trending alongside it.
Wrap Up
Overtone has always championed the power of contextual data—using information from the surrounding environment, like an article’s content, to place ads, rather than relying on invasive personal data collection. Culture Pulse builds on that foundation, offering not just page-level context, but cultural context: insight into the broader moments audiences are living through, reacting to, and talking about in real time.
We look forward to working with more brands and publishers, connecting their audiences to the world in order to further break down the atomized nature of online ecosystems, where the only thing that matters is the click. We believe there’s a better path forward—one that treats people like people. By approaching culture through a more human lens, we can help make the internet feel less like it’s designed for machines, and more like it’s designed for us.
Announcements
Event season is upon us and Overtone will be out and about this spring and summer if you’d like to meet us in person.
1) Overtone will be back at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in mid-June. Let us know if you’d like to grab a coffee or hear more about our work – or to tell us about yours.
2) Overtone has been selected as a finalist for ImpactDeal which highlights impactful, sustainable startups in Europe. Philip will be on stage in Turin in early June speaking about a project on sustainability.
With Contributions from Annie McCarter