THE MEDIA IS UNDERGOING RAPID CHANGE, BUT QUALITY CONTENT REMAINS KEY

11. 3. 2026 | 4 min read Although today's media are undergoing rapid change thanks to technological developments, quality content remains the basis of their success. This was the consensus among media managers at the TOP Women of the Czech Republic conference.

WARNING TO CZECH MEDIA: POLITICAL PRESSURE, AI AND PLATFORM DOMINANCE

28. 2. 2026 | 5 min read According to the Report on the State of Czech Democracy, Czechia maintains a high degree of media freedom, but at the same time, attacks on journalists are intensifying and pressure is growing for changes in the financing of public service media. Furthermore, the country is not prepared for the regulation of digital platforms and the impact of artificial intelligence on the media market.

TV ADS TOP THE CHARTS FOR PURCHASES, AND FOR ANNOYANCE

24. 2. 2026 | 1 min read TV ads drive purchase behavior for 49% of consumers, making them the most effective channel, even though 36% find them disruptive, according to a January report from DISQO.

HOW L’ORÉAL PARIS AND RTL MADE STREET HARASSMENT HARD TO IGNORE

24. 2. 2026 Context 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 with a practical idea: show what intervention looks like in a situation viewers recognise, then point them to an online training called “Stand Up”. A program against street harassment that L’Oréal Paris and Right To Be launched in 2020.

HOW AD ALLIANCE USED VIRTUAL SET GRAPHICS TO RESKIN THE LET’S DANCE STAGE FOR UNIVERSAL PICTURES

24. 2. 2026 Context This campaign promotes a film by changing the look of a well-known TV studio during the ad break, so the show setting becomes part of the idea.

CHANNEL 4 SHOWS HOW PUTTING ACCESSIBILITY FIRST BENEFITS BOTH CUSTOMERS AND COMMERCIAL WITH CURRYS’

24. 2. 2026 Context Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising Award 2025 set its brief under the theme “Inclusive by Design”. It asked brands to embed inclusive practices into the creative, rather than at the end of production. The initiative linked that ambition to airtime: £1m of advertising space across Channel 4’s portfolio sat behind the winning campaign. The brief framed the size of the audience affected by sight or hearing loss at nearly 20% of the UK population, putting an access gap into plain planning terms.

USING ELECTION NIGHT VIEWING HABITS TO MAKE A RETAIL MESSAGE FEEL LIKE ENTERTAINMENT

24. 2. 2026 This campaign connected Bauhaus’s retail messaging to a major national television event. In Finland, municipal and regional elections feature hours-long results TV programmes that track vote counting as results come in. Bauhaus (a major home improvement retailer) partnered with the biggest national broadcaster, Sanoma, to create branded entertainment within this format, using “price” as the central theme.

WHEN A CROSS-FORMAT APPROACH MULTIPLIES IMPACT: BOL × HUIS GEMAAKT ACROSS CONTENT & CONTEXT

23. 2. 2026 Description Bol is Belgium’s largest e-commerce platform, a household name for buying books, electronics, and everyday items online. But furniture and home décor? That was not what consumers associated with the brand. DPG Media set out to change this perception through a multi-format partnership with Huis Gemaakt (“Home Made”), a popular Flemish TV show where couples compete to renovate run-down properties, with the winning couple keeping their fully transformed home.

A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS AD BREAK AS PRIMETIME ENTERTAINMENT

23. 2. 2026 Background In the Netherlands, Christmas commercials hold a special place in television culture. Much like the Super Bowl in the United States is known for its spectacular commercials, the Dutch festive season is the moment when brands showcase their most creative, emotional storytelling. Over the years, several Christmas campaigns have achieved iconic status, moving and entertaining millions of viewers and winning the Ster Gouden Loeki, the public award for best commercial. These campaigns demonstrate how advertising can contribute to the collective holiday spirit.

GIVING SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES THEIR FIRST TV SPOTLIGHT

23. 2. 2026 Background B Corp certification is a globally recognised standard for businesses that meet high levels of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. The certification is awarded by B Lab, a non-profit organisation. In the UK, there are thousands of certified B Corps, many of them small businesses with ambitions to reach mainstream audiences at scale. Channel 4 saw an opportunity to use its platform to spotlight these purpose-driven businesses while supporting its own sustainability commitments under the Ad Net Zero Action Plan, an industry initiative to reduce the carbon impact of advertising.

ELEVATOR PITCHES MADE REAL: GIVING BLACK ENTREPRENEURS A NATIONAL STAGE

23. 2. 2026 Black-owned businesses in the UK face significant barriers to success. Only 0.24% of venture capital funding reaches Black founders, and one-third of Black entrepreneurs struggle to gain belief in their ventures. Channel 4, in partnership with Lloyds Bank (one of the UK’s largest retail banks), created the Black in Business initiative to address these disparities. Rather than simply highlighting the problem, the initiative addressed it by removing barriers to accessing national television advertising, enabling Black-owned businesses to scale.

WHEN SILENCE SPEAKS LOUDER

22. 2. 2026 Code of Silence was a landmark drama for British television. The show starred Rose Ayling-Ellis, a deaf actress who became famous after winning Strictly Come Dancing, a popular British celebrity dance competition. In the drama, she plays a deaf woman whose exceptional lip-reading skills make her central to a covert police investigation. The production featured cast and crew from deaf, disabled, and neurodiverse communities, with innovative on-screen graphics that visualised how deaf people piece together conversations. ITV saw an opportunity to extend this representation beyond the programme itself and into the commercial break.

TURNING TRUSTED TV MOMENTS INTO BOOK SALES BY LINKING ATTENTION TO CLEAR PLACES TO BUY

20. 2. 2026 Standaard Boekhandel is a Belgian book retailer. It wanted to make reading feel relevant again at a time when many people spend more time with other entertainment. The brand also wanted its bookstores to stay strong places for discovery, where people browse and find new titles, not only pick up a book they already decided to buy.

DON’T SKIP THE BREAK: TURNING FRANCE 2’S AD BUMP INTO A LIFE-SAVING REMINDER

20. 2. 2026 Campaign objective FranceTV Publicité (FTP) built the campaign around a single TV-native move: take the short on-air ident that usually marks the start and end of advertising on France 2 (a well known visual “bump”, where the channel’s celebrities seem to be touching the screen to ‘enter’ into the advertising break) and turn it into a moment to pass an important message.

LIDL INVESTED THE MOST IN ADVERTISING IN 2025. HOW MUCH WAS INVESTED IN MEDIA?

9. 2. 2026 | 2 min read Lidl also confirmed its position as the strongest advertiser in the domestic media in 2025. Advertising for food and food chains was once again the most intense. Total advertising investment in the purchase of advertising space in the media increased only slightly, according to data from Nielsen monitoring.

WHEN BRANDS BECOME CHARACTERS: TRANSFORMING PRODUCT PLACEMENT INTO ENTERTAINMENT

30. 1. 2026 ProSieben and Joyn broke new creative ground with The Masked Singer Germany, transforming traditional product placement into something unprecedented. Seven.One Media worked with Playmobil to create a partnership where the brand did not just sponsor the program or place products within it – instead, the brand became a competing character. The Playmobil Pirate mask sang, performed, and competed alongside celebrities in one of Germany’s most-watched entertainment shows.

OVERVIEW OF INDUSTRY CONFERENCES AND COMPETITIONS IN 2026

13. 1. 2026 | 1 min read We bring you an overview of conferences in the marketing, advertising, PR and media sectors, as well as an overview of the most important industry events in 2026.

AI IS ALREADY CHANGING THE WORLD OF MEDIA; IN 2026, IT COULD BE ADVERTISING’S TURN

8. 1. 2026 | 4 min read Tech giants such as Google have made such progress with artificial intelligence that it is already having a noticeable impact on the business of many online media outlets. This trend will intensify in 2026.