Gambling brands have a responsibility to their players which must be considered when planning and buying media

Stricter gambling regulations on affordability checks and deposit limits were introduced in August 2024, impacting gambling brands’ revenue. This had a knock-on effect on our media strategies. To drive new customers to gambling websites and apps, we needed to increase awareness and shift brand appeal to a broader audience. This led to us buying high impact TV spots in appropriate programming, whilst also widening our targeting across VOD and linear radio to reach a more diverse audience.

All these gambling regulations were introduced as part of the industry-wide safer gambling initiative, designed to protect high risk players. The initiative was also an opportunity for media to emphasise the importance of the responsible gambling strategies our clients were implementing; such as aiming to reduce revenue from harmful gambling and creating community-first men’s mental health and wellbeing programmes.

This meant delivering messaging that resonates with the right audiences in contextually appropriate environments, requiring a tactical and targeted approach. Brand activity needed to communicate social responsibility and promote the brands, while performance activity had to continue to deliver profitable customer acquisition.

Adaptation is key to the success of gambling brands

At first glance the restrictions placed on the gambling industry could be viewed as a barrier to effective advertising. However, they provided gambling brands with an opportunity to discover new audiences, whilst creating positive changes for their customers. There is an ongoing challenge for regulated gambling brands, that comply with restrictions, to reduce the increase in play going via the growing black market. Consolidation of the number of regulated operators has felt inevitable for some time, but those who adapt their approach frequently and effectively can continue to thrive.

Once renowned for driving fame, today there’s so much more to OOH than static posters. We spoke with Mark Bucknell, Chief Commercial Officer, JC Decaux who told us that OOH is a data-led, digital and accountable channel that still delivers the public scale only real-world media can provide.

If you could change one thing in the industry, what would it be?

I would speed up the move from ‘panel first’ to ‘people first’ planning. We still spend a lot of time talking about formats and frames; we should spend more time on audiences, journeys and outcomes.

Concretely, that means standardising data, measurement and attribution across OOH so that agencies can compare it more easily with other channels and include it naturally in every omnichannel brief. OOH shouldn’t be a last minute add on, but a core part of the strategy.

How do you think advertising on OOH will change over the next three years?

OOH will become more dynamic and responsive. The growth of digital and programmatic DOOH means campaigns will be adapted in near real time; copy changing by location, audience segment, time of day or external signals like weather and sports results. Programmatic DOOH at scale presents a huge opportunity: buying audiences, moments and contexts rather than just panels. For advertisers, that means using OOH to bridge brand and performance: trusted public canvases, activated dynamically to drive both perception and action.

Measurement will get richer. We’re already seeing stronger links between OOH exposure and outcomes like store visits and online conversions. That will become standard, helping OOH play a bigger role in performance-oriented plans.

But what won’t change is the core strength of the medium: big, bold, public canvases that cut through digital noise and build long-term brand trust. The future is more data and more flexibility, sitting on top of that physical foundation.

What’s the biggest misconception advertisers have about OOH?

The biggest misconception is that OOH is static and hard to measure. OOH is no longer just posters. It is a data-led, digital and accountable channel that still delivers the public scale only real-world media can provide. At its best, OOH combines strong creative, smart data and the right environments to lift the whole media plan.

It is also not just a fame channel. With the right data, context and creative, OOH can drive action as well as awareness.

What’s the best use of OOH you’ve seen in the past three months?

The Grand Prix-winning “Keeping hair in the game” campaign for L’Oréal Paris is a standout. Live football moments, real-time creative and relevant environments working together brilliantly.

McDonald’s programmatic DOOH work is another strong example, using dynamic targeting and real-world triggers to deliver clear commercial impact.

Both show where OOH is heading: smarter, more responsive and still rooted in powerful public presence.

We’ve watched them evolve into mainstream pop culture figures and land high profile celebrity status. Now, it feels like influencers have become the ‘it’ channel in marketing circles.

When Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez announced in 2025 that more than half of the company’s marketing spend would shift to influencers, many interpreted it as another signal that brands were shifting budgets away from traditional media. Still, it seemed a bold move when the tangible business impact of influencer campaigns was not yet understood.

However, when investigating further it’s clear that this is not what was going on. Fernandez himself acknowledged the importance of TV. The move towards influencers was instead a shift from polished, high production ads towards authentic messaging and content that builds trust. Unilever was essentially re-positioning influencer marketing as influencer-led creative production, not using them as an awareness-focused media channel.

One year on, is Unilever’s influencer strategy working?

Unilever has indeed dramatically increased its spend on paid social. This signals that influencers aren’t a media channel in themselves. Long gone are the days when you could solely rely on someone’s organic content to drive significant reach. Unilever’s shift towards creator-led marketing tells us that the biggest opportunity is not replacing traditional media with influencers but using them as a more trusted and scalable source of content. Financially, early business results have been positive, but it’s too soon to conclusively attribute its growth to influencer activity alone.

One standout success was Unilever’s skincare brand, Vaseline. Using social listening tools, it realised that there were already streams of content on TikTok documenting its widespread use in ‘life hacks’. Launching its ‘Vaseline Verified’ campaign, the brand contributed to a conversation that had already begun on social media, rather than trying to dominate or control it. Using 450 influencers, Vaseline gave its own seal of approval to the various life hacks it was associated with, from blocking hay fever pollen to softening leather.

Influencers won’t replace mass-reach media, but they do play an important role in the marketing mix

Influencers can play an important role as part of a wider marketing strategy, but they are not a replacement for mass-reach media. Broadcast channels remain the most effective and efficient way to build awareness and mental availability at scale. Equally, brands cannot completely control creator messaging; excessive control risks undermining the authenticity that makes influencer marketing effective in the first place.

A few years ago, the conversation about influencers, or creators, was all about likes, comments and follower counts. Today advertisers are much more focused on understanding the impact creators can have on real business outcomes. We spoke with Dafs Rhys Woodward, Founder of Creator by Infinitum, who told us why the old perceptions of influencer marketing being a bit of a Wild West are outdated and how media agencies can get the most out of creators for their clients.

What is the one thing you wish everyone knew about creators?

I wish more people appreciated just how professional you need to be to build and maintain an audience today.

Whether you’re producing long form YouTube content or short form social videos, standing out has never been harder. Audiences are bombarded with content every minute of every day, platforms constantly change their algorithms, and attention is one of the most competitive commodities in the world.

The creators who succeed are not just creative. They are strategists, producers, editors, presenters, community managers and business owners all rolled into one. They have to consistently create content that people actively choose to spend time with.

That is why I think some of the old perceptions of influencer marketing being a bit of a Wild West are outdated. The best creators are highly professional media businesses, and brands should have confidence in trusting them to create content that genuinely resonates with audiences.

What are the questions you’re most often asked by advertisers?

The question I hear most often is, “How do I know if this is actually working?”

A few years ago, the conversation was all about likes, comments and follower counts. Today advertisers are much more focused on understanding the impact creators can have on real business outcomes.

Can creators drive awareness? Can they increase consideration? Can they influence search behaviour, website visits or sales?

That shift is a really positive sign for the industry. The more influencer marketing is judged against business objectives rather than social metrics, the more seriously it will be treated as a media channel.

Recently the IPA, in partnership with all the major agency HoldCo’s, delivered a groundbreaking econometrics research study that showed that Influencers were the number one channel for long term return on investment with 3.35X returns, above even TV. This level of industry-wide research should give us huge confidence to plan this media channel moving forwards.

How do you think advertising using creators will change over the next three years?

I think we’re witnessing the evolution of creators from content producers into media companies.

We’ve already seen this start to happen. The Sidemen have built an entertainment business that spans multiple channels, products and ventures. The Overlap has expanded beyond a single show and is now acquiring football YouTube channels to build a broader media network. Creators such as Jesse Burgess are moving into mainstream media partnerships while maintaining direct relationships with their audiences.

Over the next three years, I expect this trend to accelerate. The next generation of media conglomerates won’t be built by traditional broadcasters or publishers. Many will be built by creators who have mastered audience attention and community building.

I also think we’ll see a continued shift towards longer-form content, particularly on platforms like YouTube and podcasts, as audiences seek deeper engagement. However, the real magic will come from how that content is distributed. As Ed Elson and Scott Galloway have discussed, clips and cut downs are increasingly becoming the discovery engine for long-form content. Short-form content will drive awareness and reach, while long-form content will build deeper audience relationships.

For advertisers, that creates a huge opportunity. The most successful brands will be those that partner with creator-led media businesses and think beyond individual posts to become part of entire content ecosystems.

What’s the best use of creators you’ve seen in the past three months?

I’m slightly biased because we worked on it, but a recent campaign for Sky promoting its partnership with the Winter Olympics was a great example of how creators can connect traditional and digital media.

We placed Winter Olympics creators at iconic OOH locations including Piccadilly Circus, the Liverpool Media Screen and Westfield, supported by a small VFX production team. By capturing creator content around the installations and enhancing it with innovative visual effects, we created social assets that felt native to social platforms while showcasing the scale and impact of the OOH activity.

What made it particularly effective was how it blurred the lines between physical and digital media. The OOH generated attention in the real world, while creators amplified the experience online through content designed for social audiences.

The result was highly engaging creative that delivered strong performance and demonstrated how creator content can help make traditional media work harder.

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What is your proudest moment at MI? 

It actually happened today when we hit our Tree Shop target for The Woodland Trust! I only began working on the client at Christmas and it was quite daunting to have a high target to hit when I was new to digital marketing. But I worked closely with my account director, Jamie Gibbins, holding regular ideas sessions to find new ways to optimise PPC, PMax and Google Shopping. And today all that hard work paid off! 

What advice would you give to someone looking to become a digital account executive? 

Don’t go into the role having a preconceived idea of what it will be. I’ve been introduced to so many different things at MI Media. Even going to The Podcast Show last week was so different to what I believed my day-to-day would look like when I started. I have learned so much more by signing up to events or voicing an interest in working on offline projects, and some of these things have ended up being a favourite part of my job! 

Also, if you don’t know how to do something, just ask. I arrived blind to digital media and have really relied on the people around me to help. Some days I have to bombard Jamie with questions, but he is always more than willing to help and often we end up going through something different that will help weeks down the line. It’s all a learning curve 

What mistake have you learnt the most from? 

Before I got the job in New York, I had a preconceived notion of what the perfect job would look like. I’ve done such random stuff since then which has taught me not to get too hell bent on following one direction. You might surprise yourself by enjoying roles you never thought you would end up applying for. 

Podcasts are a great tool for brand building and there are different ways brands can make the most of this channel. Host reads, or sponsorships, of individual podcasts are the main route to accessing podcasts. You can expand beyond this and access a podcast group by using an audience buy within a dedicated audience targeting group so that your host read is aired across multiple podcasts, extending its reach while retaining its trust.

Some brands may be reluctant to include podcasts on their media plans because CPTs don’t look as desirable as other channels. However, the wastage is far less and attention is far higher, making the premium worth paying.

Another question we’re often asked is whether the performance of podcast advertising can be tracked and attributed. The answer is yes. Pixel tracking, dedicated URLs and promo codes provide a shorter-term performance lens within podcasts, meaning podcasts have a rightful place in some performance marketing campaigns. Retail brands regularly advertise across podcasts, typically those with a shorter purchase lifespan as results can be close to instant, with the ability to measure short-term success. However, other sector involvement is not uncommon. Fuse Energy is the current sponsor of The Rest is Politics. The brand has a longer purchase journey compared a pair of trainers for example, but the partnership spans beyond just reaching the audience while they listen on their smart phones. Fuse Energy offers The Rest is Politics listeners free memberships, discount codes and live show tickets; targeting a highly engaged, socially and politically aware audience that will resonate with Fuse Energy’s positioning as a modern alternative to legacy utility companies.

The research, the audience and the results make a convincing case for podcasts. The frequency, familiarity and way listeners identify with the podcasts they listen provide brands with a platform to tell a story. It’s an exciting space to explore, whatever the budget level.

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How do you think advertising on audio will change over the next three years?
We’ll continue to see broadcast and digital come closer together, offering advertisers a powerful blend of scale and precision. At Bauer Media, that’s something we’re already enabling through platforms like audioXi, our digital audio product, which brings together the scale of broadcast with the targeting and measurement capabilities of digital audio in a single, cohesive proposition.

Data will play an increasingly important role, enabling smarter targeting, better measurement and more personalised messaging, but crucially within trusted, regulated environments. That’s going to matter even more as the industry grapples with issues around brand safety and transparency.

At the same time, I think we’ll see a renewed appreciation for the quality of media environments. In a world of increasing fragmentation and misinformation, trusted audio brands will become even more valuable to advertisers looking for safe, effective ways to reach audiences.

How can media agencies get the most out of audio for their clients?

Start by thinking about audio differently.

Use it not just to amplify campaigns, but to drive them. Lean into the strengths of the medium – storytelling, emotion and context. The most effective audio campaigns are those that are creatively tailored to the environment, rather than repurposed from other channels.

Secondly, embrace the full audio ecosystem – from broadcast radio to digital streaming and podcasts – to build both reach and relevance.

And finally, work closely with media owners. At Bauer, we have deep audience insight, creative expertise and measurement tools that can help agencies unlock the full potential of audio. The best results come from true collaboration.

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Why are some brands still so hesitant to delve into the world of advertising within gaming?

Gaming accounts for just 1-2% of overall UK advertising spend, though investment is increasing, forecasted to reach £1.8bn in 2026. Only now is the advertising industry starting to take notice of the opportunities that gaming as a media channel can provide to brands.

Over the past few years, we have seen consumers diversify their time across a number of apps and channels. Brands can’t be reliant on running the majority of media spend within a single channel anymore. To be front of mind, you need to diversify your message across a greater media mix of platforms that work together to move your audience down the funnel, from awareness and attention to conversion. Gaming is a high-attention channel, great at driving awareness and mid-funnel activity that fuels conversion activity.

However, to put it bluntly, a lack of understanding is holding many brands back from taking advantage of the opportunities that gaming provides. Slowly, outdated stereotypes that see the gaming audience as a homogenous group of teenage boys in their bedroom are being put to one side. A surge in online gaming over the past 10 years has largely been driven by an increase in gaming across mobile and tablet devices. It’s estimated that 70-75% of the UK population can now be classed as a ‘gamer’. The average age of gamers has also increased, with the dominant age group in the UK now those aged 30-39. This is down to both an increase in gaming during COVID-19 as well as older individuals who played video games during their childhood in the 90’s, continuing to play them as they grow older. Finally, while historically gaming skewed towards a male audience, today gamers are more evenly balanced reaching close to a 50/50 split between men and women.

If we look back a few years, there was a similar hesitancy with brands launching on TikTok as we have seen with gaming. This is a common reaction to the emergence of new channels, especially when they’re tied to brand safety concerns. But, as with TikTok, the gaming space has developed to ensure key brand safety measures are in place. There’s a process of test and learn both in how the media is bought and how creative is best used to understand what strategy will deliver the greatest success. A hesitancy to undertake a period of test and learn can also act as initial blocker, but the sooner we test the sooner we can grow and strengthen performance.

Measurement and a holistic view of success

Sometimes brands get too bogged down in being super-efficient, losing sight of the importance of incremental growth. They can be too quick to write off a channel after a single test because it didn’t immediately result in strong, attributed direct conversions.

However, we know that no media works in isolation. No consumer sees a single ad and then converts immediately. Each channel is part of a wider mix working together to build frequency, covering multiple audience touchpoints and cutting through the advertising noise that consumers absorb each day.

Whilst we can incorporate tracking to show the short-term results gained from incorporating gaming into your campaigns, it’s important to look at the wider picture and understand how diversifying your media mix and creating opportunities for incremental growth have impacted the bottom line.

Brands must stop viewing gaming as a bolt on to their main campaigns

Gaming has achieved mass reach. Brands need to stop viewing it as a ‘nice to have’ or bolt on to their main campaigns. Instead, they need start including gaming in an integrated media plan from the start. While overall media spend in gaming is still small and audience growth hasn’t yet been matched with media investment, there’s a real opportunity here!

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Gaming has moved well beyond its old stereotype, but plenty of media plans still treat it like a side experiment. This Q&A with Adam Peck, Head of Advertiser Sales, UK, at iion, is really about that disconnect between perception and reality. The audience is there, the formats are there, and the outcomes are there, yet the channel is still too often treated as optional. 

What are the questions you’re most often asked by advertisers? 

Brand safety is usually the first question. After that, it tends to move quickly into audience, targeting and control. The important point is that, outside of forums and user-generated content, gaming can be an extremely safe environment. Once an advertiser is comfortable with a curated list of games, they know they are not going to appear next to unsuitable content.  

That process can be quite iterative too. A brand might ask for certain categories to be removed, such as first-person shooters, and then shape the final list from there. From that point, the conversation usually broadens into how specific the targeting can be, which could be by genre, context, third-party data, intent signals, psychographics or deterministic audiences.  

For larger international brands, there’s often another question around direct supply, SDK integrations, and global reach. 

What is the biggest opportunity for media agencies and advertisers in gaming this year? 

For me, the biggest opportunity is still untapped users, incremental reach and guaranteed outcomes. Gaming gives advertisers access to audiences they may not be reaching properly elsewhere, but the opportunity goes beyond adding scale for its own sake. There’s also something useful in the way people use games, especially on mobile, because they dip in and out, pick up where they left off and move through natural pauses in the experience.  

For example, research shows that more than 85% of players log in multiple times per day. That stop-start behaviour can make well-placed ad moments feel more natural. It creates a different kind of opening for brands, even if the industry still needs more evidence to quantify that fully. 

iion is the industry’s first full-stack gaming advertising platform, transforming how brands connect with gaming audiences and publishers monetise their gaming environments. Its tagline “Real Attention. Proven Outcomes.” encapsulates their commitment to delivering measurable results through gaming’s unmatched engagement power.

With its proprietary platforms – immersiion (DSP) for brands and fusiion (SSP) for publishers – they solve the fragmentation challenge in gaming advertising. immersiion enables brands and agencies to harness gaming’s attention advantage through an intuitive self-serve interface, while fusiion empowers publishers to maximise inventory value from their unique audiences.

Gaming isn’t the future – it’s now. iion is where brands win and publishers thrive. 

There has never been a better time to watch TV. We have a plethora of choice, with big budget productions featuring A-list Hollywood movie stars released across multiple platforms. If new releases aren’t your thing, a back catalogue of previously released content is available at the touch of a button. The biggest issue is what to choose to watch and then where to go to find the content you’re looking for. Should you watch the latest period drama, comedy stand-up special or Scandi crime series? Is it on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer or somewhere else? Decision paralysis, followed by a search for the actual platform is wasting your valuable viewing time!

This amount of choice affects advertisers too, providing both opportunities and challenges. TV used to be a simple choice between reach and performance. If you wanted to achieve reach, you would buy into premium peak programming. If you wanted cost efficient performance, daytime DRTV was the way to go. These days, brand and performance, or a combination of the two, remain the core aims of AV. But there are more choices that need to be made to achieve them. The market is increasingly fragmented; there are multiple routes to entry to access the same content. The lines between traditional and digital AV platforms are now almost completely blurred. An advertiser must consider traditional linear TV, addressable TV that targets at a household level, audience or specific programming on VOD, or programmatic access to TV through a DSP. All to access the same content on the same platform. It’s so easy to get lost in this that brands can be caught in the same decision paralysis that affects TV viewers.

With the right approach, AV is an environment where advertisers can achieve almost anything

There remains a contradiction in the AV advertising landscape, with a wealth of choice but a lack of uniform audience measurement. Without this, AV will remain a challenging landscape to tackle and there will continue to be many providers each with different measurement answers.

However, it is also an environment where advertisers can achieve almost anything. Reach or frequency, brand or performance, with budgets large or small. The ability to target audiences on a household level makes TV accessible and attractive to brands that wouldn’t have previously considered it. Big budgets aren’t always necessary. Niche audiences can be catered for. The key is to understand what each AV platform can offer and how to get the most out of it. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Advertisers that are clear in their objectives can use today’s AV landscape to reach almost any desired outcome in the way that best fits the needs of their brand.

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