“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
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THE TV ADVERTISING PARADOX, A THINKTV NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY (1/2)
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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
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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
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HOW L’ORÉAL PARIS AND RTL MADE STREET HARASSMENT HARD TO IGNORE
24. 2. 2026Context Sexual harassment in public spaces is one of the most common forms of gender-based violence in the world. Two figures frame the issue: 80% of women have experienced street harassment, but 85% of people say they lack training on how to intervene. Ad Alliance and L’Oréal created a campaign to respond to this problem… Continue reading EGTABITE 402: HOW ITV BECAME BETTER TOGETHER
HOW AD ALLIANCE USED VIRTUAL SET GRAPHICS TO RESKIN THE LET’S DANCE STAGE FOR UNIVERSAL PICTURES
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CHANNEL 4 SHOWS HOW PUTTING ACCESSIBILITY FIRST BENEFITS BOTH CUSTOMERS AND COMMERCIAL WITH CURRYS’
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