Mark Taylor

What a day! Yesterday Thinkbox Vision’s event saw many marketeers gather to explore the TV industry and the role advertising continues to play.   Our Chief Commercial Officer, Rak Patel was amongst the industry experts reflecting on the current state of play, speaking on a panel alongside commercial leads from Sky Media UK, ITV and Disney to discuss where TV is going and how it will better serve brands.   Key takeaways from the session include: - Reach, Trust & Effectiveness: TV remains a trusted platform, delivering reach and reliable results for brands in a fast-changing environment. - Industry Collaboration: Initiatives like Project Lantern are driving progress, creating universal measurement standards and increasing accessibility—especially for SMEs. - Positive Regulation: Governance and oversight provide brands with the confidence to invest in TV, knowing their campaigns are in a safe and effective space.   Attendees then got to hear the latest news from Project Lantern, a joint measurement initiative between Sky, ITV and Channel 4. As well as insights into the Educating Yorkshire series with Mr Burton sitting down with Twofour’s David Clews and AJ Odudu.

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We’re thrilled to announce Brave Bison’s acquisition of leading strategy and insights consultancy MTM!         With an impressive client roster featuring the likes of Google, Samsung Ads, Figma, Formula E, England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Sky Sports and BBC, MTM is a trusted audience strategy and insights partner for major global businesses. 🌎      MTM helps some of the biggest names in technology, entertainment and sport scale new business models, evolve products, shape positioning and reframe their relevancy in line with rapidly evolving consumer behaviours, cultural trends and commercial realities. As they join the Brave Bison universe, we become “uniquely positioned to help tomorrow’s super brands capitalise on complexity,” as our CEO and Executive Chairman Oli Green puts it.       Operating alongside but independently from our existing marketing and technology divisions, MTM will form our new insights and consultancy division. This will combine MTM’s depth of industry knowledge and breadth of research methodologies with our agile operating model and proprietary AI tooling across Brave Bison, SocialChain and Engage Digital Partners.      Welcome to the herd team MTM! We can’t wait to get started together on this new chapter. 🤝    Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ejHDNS93

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Trust is everything, and our new UK report with London Research shows just how powerful it is, especially in the finance sector. 78% of UK consumers are influenced by customer reviews, and our reviews can make a big difference. In fact, ads with Trustpilot signals are 14 times more likely to be clicked, and websites using them see an increase in trust, brand affinity and conversions. Check out the full report: https://lnkd.in/d5pe4-77.

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Barb has officially added YouTube to its TV-set audience measurement framework - but does the data tell the full story? In his latest thought leadership piece for The Media Leader UK, Director of Data, Tech & Product, Graham Swallow breaks down:  📊 Barb’s reporting covers just 200 of YouTube’s 4.6M+ monetising channels - what does that mean for accuracy?  🧠 How panel-based TV measurement stacks up against YouTube’s real-time platform data  🚀 The bigger question: how to reach audiences effectively across formats, screens, and viewing behaviours With over 1,000 social channels under our global network, Graham shares insight into how measurement must evolve to reflect YouTube’s true scale, speed, and fragmentation. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/duV2Kzcb

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‘Reacting fast isn't the whole story’: UK ad industry on the latest AA/WARC report The opening quarter of 2025 saw UK adspend increase 8% year-on-year (YoY) to a total of £10.6bn. Narrowly ahead of previous forecasts, performance strategies such as search and online display supported budget expansions. PMW spoke to a panel of experts for their takes on these latest AA/WARC figures. Read the full feature via the link in the comments. With insights from: Paul Evans V2RSION Dan Black Teads Sarah Lawson Johnston Vudoo Edward Bristow Adlook Marko Johns Seedtag Nick Waters Making Science Philip Duffield The Trade Desk Elie Kauffmann Audion Sarah Flannery Jellyfish Sam Holland UniLED Software Will Frappell Charlie Oscar Tilman Harmeling Usercentrics David Mandeno Revving Sara Vincent Utiq Tom Curry Yahoo Michael Isaacs-Olaye Happydemics Saj Nazir Disruptive Lab Tom Jameson WPP Media Ben Putley Alkimi David Sargant SBS Cameron Russell Marketreach Advertising Association WARC #research #data #performancemarketing #AI #adspend

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Heather Dansie of Newsworks and the great Peter Field talking about the high impact of high attention advertising at Adwanted Events’ Future of Media Manchester event Using Lumen Research, Brand Metrics snd IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) data, Peter describes the crisis in modern advertising: brands are investing too much money on ‘short attention’ platforms and not investing in ‘long attention’ media Link to paper in comments Anders Lithner Shazia Ginai

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UK ad market defies economic headwinds with 8% growth The UK advertising industry saw £10.6bn spent in Q1 2025 alone. 🤳 Social media +14.7% 🔍 Search advertising +12.3% 🎬 Cinema advertising +19.2% (thank you, Bridget Jones & Captain America) The digital takeover: Online formats now command a staggering 82.6% of all ad spend (5 years ago it was 66%). What's driving this? US tariff concerns had brands front-loading budgets, fuelling a spending frenzy among performance formats with shorter lead times. Looking ahead: The market is projected to hit £45.5bn in 2025 (+6.8%) with continued growth into 2026 (+5.6%). As WARC's data guru James McDonald puts it: "Brands appear to be adapting to the current environment by reallocating budgets tactically, with the outlook for the year remaining broadly positive despite persistent headwinds.” So, some positive UK ad news today, in association with Advertising Association 💙

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"𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗴𝗼 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂" Pete Markey, former CMO of TSB Bank & Boots UK, shared this insight during his conversation with Amina Folarin at The AI Advantage: Tech & Talent Aligned for Growth event, and perfectly captured the real challenge facing marketers today. With 51% of CMOs struggling with demand management, the pressure to adopt AI is real. But this transformation isn't just about the tech, it's about choosing the right partner to navigate it with you. Our new blog series extends this conversation, starting with a practical framework for evaluating AI transformation partners. 📖 Understand the framework in our first blog: https://hubs.li/Q03Jv-mL0 #AITransformation #InHouseMarketing #GenAI

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How should brands navigate AI search? 🔎 In the latest episode of The Media Leader Podcast, Paul Bland, Chief Digital Officer at Havas Media Network UK, unpacks how AI-driven search is rewriting the rules of brand visibility. This conversation follows the launch of Brand Insights AI, Havas Media Network UK’s custom-built tool designed to help brands understand and optimize how they appear across leading AI platforms. Listen now and discover how to stay visible in the evolving search landscape https://lnkd.in/e6RmgHrj 🎧 #HavasProud #AISearch #AI #ConvergedAI #BrandInsightsAI The Media Leader UK | Havas Media UK

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The classic marketing funnel is disappearing - and retail media is replacing it 🛍️ In this episode of ‘Futurescape: 2030 & beyond’, James Chandler, IAB UK’s Chief Strategy Officer, is joined by Claire Trbovic, Group Business Director - Incubation Hub, SMG, and Simon Andrews, Founder & Publisher, FIX. They discuss the opportunities and challenges of this retail-first world: how brands can collaborate with competitors without losing their distinctiveness, why cross-retail data access will be key to growth, and how to balance commercial growth with customer experience (plus, a surprising example involving cheese) 🧀 Listen now on The IAB UK Podcast 🎧 https://lnkd.in/e5qJUBwh  Or watch the full episode on YouTube 📺 https://lnkd.in/evJujivv

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Nearly two years after debuting its Amplify retail media play, David Jones has chalked up 1,000 bespoke brand campaigns, including 50 with non-endemic partners, and extended what’s on offer through to onsite dynamic display and enabling first-party data activation for third-party DSPs both onsite and office. CMO James Holloman says its “landed FY25 to our business expectations” and is confident it can deliver on future retail media ambitions. Having previously cited these ambitions are to sit above the average $30m-35m per year retail media other retailers are generating, Holloman is confident the retailer has the goods to deliver on future retail media ambitions. In FY26, he’s banking on expanded first-party audience targeting of millions of Australia’s luxury and premium buying consumers – a base soon to be bolstered by the debut of David Jones’ new rewards program that’ll give shoppers the ability to earn and redeem Qantas Frequent Flyer points plus a new mobile app – plus a highly curated brand selection and campaign approach, fresh digital screens at half a dozen refurbished stores, and growing DSP, planning and measurement integrations, to accomplish it. https://lnkd.in/g5SHhDaR

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"AI shouldn't replace creativity—it should remove the manual, less fulfilling parts of the job so teams can focus on strategy, interpretation and better brand experiences." Our EMEA Head of Integrated Media, Jack Chape, joined The Drum's latest podcast to dig into what responsible AI really looks like in marketing. It’s not just about using the tools, it’s about using them with intention to unlock better work and more meaningful brand impact. 🎧 Listen in: https://bit.ly/45jlYog

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Marking a momentous 18-year milestone this summer, SoGlos co-founders Michelle Fyrne and James Fyrne reflect on the profound transformation regional media has undergone in the UK since 2007 – as digital-first media brand, SoGlos, redefines what local media stands for in 2025. Find out more: https://lnkd.in/ehNT34KB #media #independent #gloucestershire #publishing #digital #insight

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The hybrid work divide is real – and it's creating some surprising fault lines in adland. New research from Campaign UK reveals only 45% of advertising professionals are happy with their company's hybrid arrangements. The most affected? Younger employees, parents, and those who relocated during the pandemic. The culture cost of policy U-turns: "Some of the bigger organisations have flipped from 'we're cool and we're going to be fully flexible' to 'you need to be in four days a week' and that totally undermines a company's culture." Henry Daglish, CEO & Co-Founder, Bicycle London Your culture isn't what you say in onboarding presentations. It's what you do when business pressures mount. Companies that built their employer brand on flexibility are now discovering that pulling it back is far harder than giving it in the first place. Be intentional about the promises you make. Your people remember them. Read the full story Campaign in the link below 

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“The only cases we have seen where huge transformation with AI doesn’t also deliver significant double-digit year-one savings are when the client isn’t looking at a big enough piece of their business to transform.” A great piece in The Drum from Brandtech Partner and Head of Emerging Technology Rebecca Sykes on the big conversations she’s having with brands as they scale Gen AI across their marketing. Link in comments 👇

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Fantastic Signals and Where to Find Them: A Publisher's Guide to Unlocking Scale 📈 It's just 5 days to go until Retail Media Summit UK, where Tom Shapland, Enterprise Director, Brands & Advertisers at Permutive, and Charlie Celino, Commercial Services Director at News UK, will take to the stage. For retailer media networks and advertisers, the promise of the Open Internet is scale, but the reality is often a frustrating chase for IDs that deliver limited results. It’s time for a new strategy. The key to unlocking that scale lies in harnessing the first-party signals that premium publishers can offer directly to advertisers – so that both the buy side and sell side benefit and see better results. View the full agenda here - https://lnkd.in/evMJ68Rh #RetailMediaSummitUK

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