“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” This week’s egtabite shows how ITV took Socrates’ quote to heart as it launched its new strategy based on a simple question: ‘What can we do better?’
In collaboration with the marketing consultancy AAR Group, ITV conducted 40 one-on-one interviews with agencies to gauge their sentiment about ITV. What are they feeling? What isn’t working? The agencies’ crystal-clear feedback led to some valuable course corrections: a ‘Better Together’ strategy and the adoption of 3 new ways of working within ITV: Always be in Beta, Celebrate your Superpower and Create conversations.
Always in Beta
Where in the past, ITV was too protective of its work, the sales house began inviting partners upstream into the innovation pipeline, to experiment together.
A clear example is the hackathon innovation mindset adopted by ITV AdLabs, with partners joining to develop the future of TV advertising at speed. The strategy has already brought 27 ground-breaking beta pilot projects to market since November, such as interactive shoppable ads with a QR creative overlay, automated contextual targeting, advertising in the Metaverse and a share-of-voice dashboard that reports daily TV share-of-voice relative to competitors.
Celebrating our Superpower
Celebrating our Superpower means helping brands better understand the mainstream culture, and leveraging ITV’s ability to bring the nation together.
One comment in the AAR research hit home: “ITV knows its mainstream audiences so well. They have all this stuff, but they bury it and don’t share it with us”. So, the sales house shared its most comprehensive cultural research ever.
What Unites a Kingdom identifies the social and cultural DNA of the nation today in a multi-disciplinary and multi-staged study.
The research provides insight into the big, deep stuff that underpins who the British people are, by identifying 5 codes of British culture that act as glue to bring the nation together.
For example, Dream Big where Brits like to support underdogs, full of imagination, who carve their own paths (such as Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford giving back to his community). The findings were shared in presentations and workshops, and partners were given unfettered access to an abundant source of stories, video, photography, stats and insights.
Another example was Feeling Seen, a study on how diverse advertising unites, in partnership with System1 Group and diversity experts DECA. The research analysed over 10k interviews with the general population, and also with groups represented across 30 ads. The findings showed how authentic advertising delivers a diversity dividend to those represented, to society, and brands’ ROI.
Creating conversations
Instead of one-way sales pitches, ITV started a different kind of conversation, with better work based on more inspiring insights.
New conversations happened through ITV AdVentures Invest, which took minority equity stakes in early-stage digital natives and D2Cs in return for advertising. For example, ITV invested in Feel, a tailored vitamin postal subscription company, in location platform what3words, utility service ismybillfair, and online men’s clothing brand spoke.
Other examples include Conversations around Climate Action Week, which led to the creation of ITV Home Planet: an initiative that brought together brands with sustainable products and services – such as eBay, Co-op and Sainsbury’s – to showcase the changes that audiences can make to live sustainably.
Conversations with Marks & Spencer led to Cooking With The Stars: a primetime ad-funded show, featuring 200 M&S ingredients, sponsorship idents, social content, and in-store licence activation.
Better together
The new culture has been built from within, with team members taking the initiative to support one another, share learnings and have fun.
A few of the many initiatives: ITV has partnered with Google’s Black Founders Fund, to support start-up businesses frequently underserved by V.C. investment, started a Diversity Commissioning Fund, to commit £80m of the content budget over 3 years to drive change towards racial and disability equity, and launched Disability Access Passports, to remove barriers and help colleagues to discuss their access requirements with managers and peers.
“Across 2021, our Commercial team delivered the single biggest revenue in ITV’s 67-year history. Total revenue was up 24% on 2020, and 11% up on 2019. When we unleashed ‘Better Together’ upon 1,000 customers in November’s ITV Palooza at the Royal Festival Hall, our rallying cry was “Hold us to account!”
and we’re proud to say that this strategy continues to make us better,” says Chris Goldson, Director of Commercial Marketing & Pitch Development at ITV.
OTHER CASE STUDIES
AN IMMERSIVE CANAL+ BRAND SOLUTIONS COLLABORATION FOR SKIN-CARE BRANDS WITH SENSITIVE STORIES TO TELL
26. 6. 2026CANAL+ BRAND SOLUTIONS and its in-house studio LA FACTORY created “Marquer l’Invisible” for Avène, linking Cicalfate+ to a documentary-style story about scars, tattooing, repair and protection without turning the content into a product demonstration. The activation combined production, premium CANAL+ app placement, a 20-second STREAM+ pre-roll teaser, and social distribution through Clique, giving advertisers a clear example of integrated branded content execution. Rolled out from 6 April 2026 and targeting women aged 25–54, the campaign shows how co-constructing the story, media setting and brand role from the outset can strengthen authenticity, cultural relevance and audience fit.
M6 UNLIMITED TESTS AI SPOT CREATION FOR SMALLER TV AND STREAMING ADVERTISERS
22. 5. 2026M6 Unlimited is testing a simpler route into TV and streaming for SMEs and new advertisers by combining lower entry budgets, a future ad manager, and support across strategy, creative production, and measurement. In a proof of concept with Waymark, it used INGA’s existing brand assets to create an AI-generated TV-ready spot, positioning ad sales teams earlier in the creative process for advertisers that do not arrive with finished video. Before any media plan was built, Toluna Insights pre-tested the ad and placed it in the top 20% for attention, brand recall, message recall, brand association, brand fit, and brand action, while also identifying weaker emotional resonance as a clear optimisation point. The case shows how AI-assisted production and testing can lower creative barriers for smaller advertisers while giving sales houses evidence to refine campaigns before wider rollout.
THE TV ADVERTISING PARADOX, A THINKTV NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY (2/2)
22. 5. 2026ThinkTV New Zealand built its campaign around the contradiction that linear TV was being called obsolete while still delivering scale, attention, and brand outcomes, using evidence-led messaging aimed primarily at CMOs and CFOs rather than broadcasters speaking for themselves. The centerpiece was an 80-page standalone edition of NZ Marketing magazine, with 4,000 copies distributed to marketers, agencies, and key decision-makers, supported by eight weeks of out-of-home, four months of TV, and a dedicated website. The campaign’s core visual distilled the issue into a single question: TV reach is stable, so why is investment falling? LinkedIn then amplified the debate, with marketers publicly challenging agency recommendations and growing reliance on YouTube.
A BIG-SCREEN STUDY FINDS STRONGER ATTENTION ON TV4 PLAY THAN ON YOUTUBE
24. 4. 2026TV4 just launched its third attention study, comparing the viewing experience on its streaming service (TV4 Play) with YouTube’s big screen experience at home. It confirms once again the assumption that the streaming environment provided by a qualitative TV network (BVOD) delivers a much bigger attention than UGC platforms, such as YouTube. An at-home test… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
THE TV ADVERTISING PARADOX, A THINKTV NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY (1/2)
24. 4. 2026In late 2024, ThinkTV New Zealand, under the leadership of Jacqueline Freeman, GM Communications, undertook a full market review to understand how television was being perceived, valued, and used across the New Zealand marketing ecosystem. This was a broad diagnostic rather than a simple pulse check. It drew on perspectives from CMOs, CFOs, insights people,… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
AD EMISSIONS MEASUREMENT: LESSONS FROM THE FINNISH MARKET
31. 3. 2026Finland’s commercial TV broadcasters spent the past year developing a carbon emissions measurement framework for linear TV advertising, starting with no local methodology and ending with a validated model owned by an industry body. For markets facing the same challenge, the experience offers a useful reference point. Start narrow, then scale The project focused exclusively… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
A NEW WAY FOR FRANCETV PUBLICITÉ TO SELL CONTEXTUAL VIDEO ADVERTISING
27. 3. 2026FranceTV Publicité (FTP), the advertising sales house for French public television, has introduced Context.IA into its digital video offer. The solution uses programme context to decide when an ad should appear, instead of relying only on fixed scheduling. That makes Context.IA a new commercial tool inside FranceTV Publicité’s own video inventory. Context.IA links programme cues… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
BUILDING A SHOPPABLE, ATTENTION-READY CTV OFFER: THE BIG BROTHER CONTEXTUAL CASE
26. 3. 2026In 2025, Paramount Australia, in partnership with FreeWheel and egta, hosted a webinar outlining a forward-looking view of the evolving advertising market. One key topic explored the industry’s shift to pull-based discovery, experience-driven engagement, and frictionless content-commerce integration. Paramount Australia’s Contextual Advertising Suite directly responds to these trends, reinforcing the company’s leadership in premium CTV… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
GLOBO CREATES HOME SCREEN PROMINENCE FOR FREE-TO-AIR TV ON SMART TVS
26. 2. 2026Globo, Brazil’s largest commercial TV group, is rolling out DTV+, a next-generation free-to-air TV standard designed for connected TVs. It brings broadcast channels into the TV operating system, with app-like navigation, login and interactive layers placed directly on top of live programming. The move fits Brazil’s viewing reality. Linear TV accounts for 57.9% of total… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
THE VISUAL TRANSFER EFFECT: HOW SOUND BUILDS BRANDS
24. 2. 2026In collaboration with neuro-marketing agency Unravel, Talpa Media has produced the scientific proof that audio does not just complement TV. It actively reactivates it, reconstructing visual brand memories in the consumer’s mind through sound. The findings carry significant implications for how audio is planned, sold, and valued within the wider media mix. Context Talpa Media… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
RMB TURNS QR CODE VOTING INTO A SHARED VIEWING MOMENT THAT STRENGTHS BRAND IMAGE FOR SPRITE AND DELI CHOC
24. 2. 2026Campaign objectives The chocolate snack Deli Choc and soft drink Sprite brands worked with RMB to reach younger audiences by becoming part of Belgian hip-hop show “PLAYGROUND”, supporting new rap talent through a live QR vote and cross-platform content. This helps the brands appear as enablers of the format rather than separate ads. For RMB… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
CANADIAN SUPERSTAR ANDREW PHUNG HELPS VIA RAIL CHALLENGE CAR CONVENIENCE ASSUMPTIONS WITH LONG-FORM STORYTELLING ACROSS CBC’S TV ECOSYSTEM
24. 2. 2026Campaign objectives VIA Rail, the company operating Canada’s national passenger rail service, combined a new product launch with brand building, using long-form content to tackle misconceptions that tend to block conversion in travel: comfort, ease, and whether rail feels like a realistic alternative to driving for intercity trips. The objectives behind this campaign were to… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER