In an ever-changing advertising landscape, advertisers and sales houses alike need to keep abreast of the latest consumer trends, capturing the consumer’s attention in new innovative ways. This week’s egtabite puts the spotlight on such a creative case by the French sales house M6 Publicité, aimed at both entertaining viewers and engaging them by jumping on a current trend: The Emoji Hunt.
The hunt is on
The M6 Emoji Hunt contest, created for the French postal service La Poste, was inspired by the Pokémon craze of 2018, where people were encouraged to hunt Pokémons through an augmented reality app on their smartphone. The Emoji Hunt was also sparked by the increasingly frequent use of emoji’s in a wide range of communication channels – both by consumers as well as brands.
The 360° Emoji Hunt targeted young audiences and included both linear TV and digital elements, such as a TV and online campaign, a personalised contest on the 6Play VOD platform and a campaign on social media. The topic of the campaign was the new range of stamps La Poste was launching.
At the beginning of the ad breaks on linear TV, a 6-second intro board was shown, announcing that an emoji stamp, created by La Poste, would be shown in the upcoming ad break. This emoji of the day was shown only at the end of the break – encouraging viewers to watch the break in its entirety, then go online on the 6Play platform and participate in a competition to win a trip.
Cross-departmental collaboration
The format was developed by the Marketing Innovation Team at M6 Publicité, a department of 4 people, who had to coordinate the campaign with TV Sales, TV Planning, Ad Operations, Creative Web, Creative TV, Communication, Financial Department and Legal Department. Overall, around 30 people were involved in the project. The campaign was developed in direct contact with the advertiser, with the involvement of their creative agency Starcom.
The pricing package was divided into three parts: ad space on linear TV and the 6play VOD platform, the contest hosting on a digital channel and creative & tech fees. The ad space on linear TV included a 6-second intro board (announcement), a 30-second La Poste spot and a 6-second emoji board (“emoji of the day”). The pricing for this ad space included a premium fee that was higher than normal, including legal, creative and technical fees.
Results and future
The campaign, which ran for five consecutive days, provided strong engagement and yielded an 18% uplift in recall and attention on La Poste’s spot, a 12% click rate on the website and left 89% of viewers with a positive image of the brand. The Emoji Hunt was a stand-alone campaign.
M6 Publicité is currently looking into the creation of similar experiences, combining an introductory board, a final reveal board within the TV ad break and an echo in the digital space. Formats such as personalised Quiz Breaks, allowing viewers to interact with the brands in real-time, are currently in development.
OTHER CASE STUDIES
M6 UNLIMITED TESTS AI SPOT CREATION FOR SMALLER TV AND STREAMING ADVERTISERS
22. 5. 2026M6 Unlimited is building a simpler route into TV and streaming advertising for smaller and newer advertisers. Its offer combines a dedicated SME buying path through its future ad manager, lower entry budgets, support across strategy, creative production and measurement. During a POC with Waymark, M6 Unlimited explored how to reduce the cost and complexity… Continue reading EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
THE TV ADVERTISING PARADOX, A THINKTV NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY (2/2)
22. 5. 2026The strategic response: the TV advertising paradox. The TV Advertising Paradox did not begin as a creative idea in search of a problem. It emerged as the strategic response to what the market review revealed. At the centre of the response sat a contradiction that could not be ignored. Linear television was being described as… Continue reading EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS
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 EGTABITE281: EMOJI HUNT BY M6- INNOVATIVE USE OF CONTEXTUALISED AD BREAKS