Brands Win New Demographics By Pinpointing And Participating In Cultural Blank Space

Growing a brand's audience is one of the oldest challenges in marketing. Doing it without alienating the loyal base is what makes it hard. Most brands default to broader messaging, bigger media buys, or trend-chasing campaigns that dilute identity in pursuit of reach. The ones breaking through are identifying cultural white space where their audience already lives, entering as a participant rather than an advertiser, and designing experiences that feel native to the community rather than imported from a media plan.

Treating this approach as an operating system is Valerie Vacante, Founder of strategy and innovation firm Collabsco. She is an award-winning global innovator who leads product innovation across gaming, retail, and emerging technology for Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 clients. Her portfolio spans over 50 brands including Microsoft, Hasbro, Mattel, Disney, PepsiCo, and Nestlé. Vacante's approach to brand growth starts with human behavior, not media channels.

"I think AI is great to co-create with as your editor, as your ideator, to bounce ideas off of. But the human needs to be driving it. Without it, that is where you get the AI slop. Consumers are savvy to it now," Vacante says. It's this approach of human-led creativity backed by data and cultural fluency that powers every campaign she builds.

Finding the white space

Vacante's clearest proof of the cultural-white-space thesis is her work with Differin, an acne-care brand that wanted to reach Gen Z and Gen Z Alpha but had no presence in the communities where that demographic spends time. The research surfaced two data points that changed the entire strategy: 85% of people between 12 and 24 have acne, and 90% of that same group are gamers. No competing acne brand dominated gaming. "White space, check. Space that we can get into, check. People in the gaming community can be protective, so you have to do it right. You have to connect with the community. You can't just drop something in and say 'buy now.'"

The campaign went from strategy to market in six weeks and rolled out across three phases: Twitch IRL at TwitchCon, sponsored stream with Fortnite icons, and branded integrations inside five Roblox games. Each phase followed the same principle of showing up where the community already is, rewarding participation with things that matter inside that space (gifted subs, in-game power-ups), and keeping the commerce layer present but never intrusive. Streamers shared their own acne experiences authentically rather than reading ad copy, and shoppable moments were built into the platforms without forcing a hard sell.

The results validated the approach. Website traffic increased 266% from the Twitch stream alone, media coverage grew by 620%, and purchase intent exploded by 5,800% across the full campaign. "It was the first time this brand had done anything in gaming. We shaped those never-before experiences with a really community-first focus," Vacante shares.

A framework for iterating fast without overplanning

To let brands move from insight to prototype to launch without getting trapped in extended planning cycles, Vacante operates on a framework she calls Now, Near, Next. "The 'now' is always building the prototype, getting in front of people, getting feedback along the way," she explains. "The 'near' is iterating on it. The 'next' might be the full build-out or portfolio growth. It's really just defining what those beats mean to whatever you're doing. The timeline can compress or stretch depending on the project."

The Differin campaign followed this arc naturally. Twitch with supporting gaming-focused media was the now, Differin Duos Twitch stream with Fortnite icons was the near, Roblox in-game and IRL, accessible shopping experiences was the next. Each phase built on learnings from the previous one and expanded the brand's community presence without overcommitting resources before validation.

Co-creation starts with listening

Beyond campaign design, Vacante advocates for co-creation as an always-on discipline rooted in community listening. Fans and communities, she asserts, are a brand's hotbed of innovation. The friction points they identify through complaints, feature requests, and unmet needs are often the seed of the next product, experience, or campaign. "What are people loving? What are they hating? What are they really complaining about? Don't be upset that they're complaining. Help them. Listen. Community always on, always listening, as a point of inspiration."

She uses the anime dub delay as an example. For years, fans who preferred dubbed anime in their native language had to wait months after the original Japanese release, which fragmented the fan community and prevented shared cultural moments. Solving that pain point through simultaneous or near-simultaneous releases brings the entire community together and amplifies every downstream activity, from merchandise drops and theatrical releases to conventions and social conversations.

She also references Mattel's approach to putting consumers in the designer seat through Hot Wheels co-creation, where mega-fans and everyday customers provide feedback on prototypes before influencers ever see the product. Across brands, a consistent pattern emerges. The brands that involve their community in the creation process build stronger products and deeper loyalty than those that develop in isolation and market outward.

AI is the partner, not the creator

Though Gen Z is highly AI fluent, its members can also be skeptical of the technology. Vacante positions AI as a valuable creative partner, useful for ideation, editing, competitive analysis, and content variation, but only when a human is steering. Without human direction, she says, it produces the kind of generic, low-effort output that Gen Z and Gen Alpha cusper audiences are increasingly quick to identify and reject. "I'm hearing a lot of that chatter from Gen Z and the cuspers," she says. "They're saying, 'I don't want to see AI slop.'" In Vacante's view, the brands that get this new phase right will be the ones using cultural intelligence to identify where their audience already lives, entering those spaces with experiences that reward participation, and letting the community's own behavior guide what gets built next. "Having the steering wheel, making it yours, and still owning it is what separates useful AI from noise."