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Most brands still treat a cultural moment like a single event. A topic trends, a campaign gets built around the headline, and by the time it launches, the conversation has already moved on.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is a perfect example, not because of the ceremony itself, but because of everything that happened around it. Long before any official details were confirmed, the internet had already transformed it into dozens of interconnected conversations spanning fashion, sports, celebrity media, luxury, and fandom.
That gap between how brands plan and how culture actually moves is one of the most overlooked trends in advertising today.
To better understand it, Seedtag’s LAB Insights team mapped the online conversation using Liz, our proprietary Neuro-Contextual AI. What emerged went far beyond one couple or one weekend. It revealed how cultural moments evolve across connected interests, emotions, and intent, and why real-time marketing built around a single keyword rarely captures the full opportunity.
The timing couldn't be more relevant. As brands continue to invest in video ads, generative AI, and short-form content, the race to respond to cultural moments is only accelerating. But speed alone doesn't solve the core challenge. Most campaigns built around viral moments still capture only a fraction of the conversation because they're not designed to follow where attention actually goes.
Key Takeaways
- Cultural moments rarely unfold as a single story. They spread across interconnected clusters of interest, emotion, and intent.
- Speculation often generates more sustained engagement than the confirmed event itself, making anticipation a marketing opportunity in its own right.
- Audiences move fluidly between fashion, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle, while many marketing strategies still treat these as separate categories.
- Brand mentions and fashion signals emerge early, creating valuable windows for brand recognition long before mainstream coverage catches up.
- Understanding conversations at the cluster level, rather than the headline level, turns viral moments into smarter, data-driven marketing strategies.
What Hidden Advertising Trends Do Brands Miss When a Cultural Moment Goes Viral?
Most marketing teams still approach cultural moments as a single spike in attention. A story breaks, interest rises, then fades, and campaigns are built to capture that one wave.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding shows why that model leaves value on the table.
Using Liz, we identified more than 2,160 topic nodes grouped into seven distinct contextual clusters. This wasn't one conversation. It was seven overlapping narratives, each with its own audience, emotional tone, and commercial relevance.
Two of those clusters, Swiftie Speculations and Entertainment Press, each represented roughly 30% of the entire graph. Long before the ceremony took place, conversations around celebrity NDAs, venue rumors, family connections, and media speculation were already driving enormous engagement.
The biggest marketing opportunity isn't the cultural moment itself. It's everything happening before, around, and beyond it.
The build-up consistently attracts more sustained attention than the event itself, and it expands across categories that have little to do with the obvious topic. A wedding quickly becomes a conversation about fashion, sports, music, luxury, celebrity media, and fandom, each creating its own emotional context and commercial opportunity.
Why Do Traditional Marketers Fail to Catch Emerging Advertising Trends Related to Internet Subcultures?
One of today's fastest-moving advertising trends is the growing influence of internet subcultures on mainstream conversations. Yet traditional marketing strategy still plans around categories like sports, entertainment, and fashion as if audiences move between them in predictable ways.
They don't. Internet communities connect topics organically, creating conversations that cross industries, audiences, and platforms.
Swifties are a perfect example.
Throughout the weeks leading up to the wedding, fans treated every rumor, clue, and unconfirmed detail as meaningful. Liz's contextual graph surfaced clusters filled with themes like superfans, theories, itineraries, and speculation, sitting alongside entertainment journalism and celebrity news coverage.
The conversation wasn't driven by confirmed information. It was driven by curiosity.
Brands focused exclusively on official news coverage would have missed where engagement was actually happening.
A second cluster told a parallel story.
Taylor Swift's music career and Travis Kelce's NFL season evolved side by side, connecting music, sports, celebrity culture, and personal relationships into a single narrative. Rather than one audience absorbing the other, two powerful communities expanded the conversation together.
For marketers, that's the real lesson. Consumer behavior doesn't follow category boundaries. It follows relevance.
Understanding those connections requires data-driven marketing strategies capable of following conversations as they evolve, rather than waiting for headlines to define them.
One Moment, Many Conversations
This is where many marketing strategies fall short.
Marketers often build campaigns around the trending keyword, assuming audiences experience culture through a single topic.
They don't.
People move naturally between interests, emotions, and intent, following whichever thread feels most relevant in the moment.
Fashion became one of the earliest signals in this example.
Before most official details emerged, guest photos, designer speculation, and luxury brand mentions had already formed one of the densest contextual clusters within Liz's graph.
Dior quickly became associated with the wedding dress, while Artifex attracted attention for the engagement ring. Rather than supporting the main story, these brands became part of it, generating their own conversations driven by admiration, aspiration, and curiosity.
This is real-time marketing at its best.
Fashion isn't simply an extension of a cultural moment. It's often one of the first places where brand recognition accelerates because audiences are already emotionally invested.
Secrecy became another conversation entirely.
Once speculation focused on Madison Square Garden, discussions around guest lists, venue security, the 34th Street shutdown, and celebrity NDAs exploded across media and social platforms.
Much of the engagement wasn't fueled by confirmed information. It was fueled by anticipation.
That anticipation spread especially well through short-form video, where audiences actively searched for updates, theories, and behind-the-scenes clues rather than polished explanations.
More importantly, it demonstrates a broader advertising trend.
People don't wait for the headline. They engage with everything leading up to it.
Why Marketers Miss These Connected Conversations
Traditional media planning still tends to organize campaigns by category. Sports content is bought as sports. Entertainment is bought as entertainment. Fashion is treated as its own world.
But audiences don't experience culture that way.
They move seamlessly between conversations, following the stories, emotions, and communities that matter most to them.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding showed exactly that.
Swifties didn't simply overlap with NFL fans. Together, they created an entirely new conversation that neither audience could have generated alone. Music, sports, celebrity culture, and lifestyle became part of the same cultural moment, creating fresh opportunities for brands that understood how those interests connected.
The emotional signals driving that conversation were equally revealing.
Admiration, anticipation, excitement, and joy weren't attached to one topic. They flowed naturally across multiple contextual clusters as audiences followed every new development.
That's why campaigns built around a single category often miss the moment when engagement is at its highest.
Audience intent doesn't follow media plans. It follows connected conversations.
And understanding those conversations is becoming one of the defining advertising trends shaping modern marketing strategy.
The Marketing Lesson: Understanding Before Reacting
Reacting quickly to a cultural moment is no longer enough.
The real advantage comes from understanding how that moment evolves before, during, and after it captures mainstream attention.
This is where Neuro-Contextual Intelligence changes the equation.
Rather than relying on personal data or assumptions about who audiences are, our Neuro-Contextual AI, Liz, interprets signals of interest, emotion, and intent directly from the content people are engaging with across the open web.
Applied to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding, Liz identified more than 2,160 topic nodes connected across seven contextual clusters, revealing not just where attention existed, but how it moved between fashion, sports, entertainment, luxury, fandom, and celebrity media.
Instead of reducing the event to a single headline or keyword, the graph exposed an ecosystem of interconnected conversations.
That's the principle behind Neuro-Contextual Advertising.
Rather than treating a cultural moment as a single media opportunity, it enables brands to understand the wider context surrounding it, helping them align with the emotions, interests, and intent driving engagement in real time.
Because understanding audiences means understanding how conversations evolve, not simply what they're talking about at any given moment.
What This Means for Marketing Strategy
The pace of digital culture continues to accelerate.
Marketers are investing more in generative AI, content creation, short-form video, and social media campaigns to respond faster to emerging trends. Those investments matter.
But speed alone isn't enough.
The brands that create meaningful connections won't necessarily be the ones publishing first.
They'll be the ones who understand where attention is moving before everyone else does.
That requires looking beyond headlines and trending keywords to see the broader patterns shaping consumer behavior.
Cultural moments don't belong to a single audience, a single platform, or a single category.
They're built from dozens of interconnected conversations unfolding simultaneously across the open web.
Understanding those connections is quickly becoming one of the most important competitive advantages in modern marketing.
The Advertising Trend That Actually Matters
The next defining cultural moment won't belong to the brands that react the fastest. It'll belong to the brands that understand how conversations spread.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is simply one example.
Tomorrow's defining moment could be the Super Bowl, the Oscars, a World Cup final, or an unexpected viral trend. The event will change, but the pattern won't.
Cultural moments don't unfold through a single conversation. They spread across interconnected interests, emotions, and behaviors.
For marketers, that's the advertising trend that matters most. The brands that learn to understand those connections won't just keep up with culture. They'll be ready to move with it.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 will generate an unprecedented volume of attention across digital media. For automotive brands, that scale creates enormous opportunity but also a significant challenge: standing out in an environment where every advertiser competes for the same audience.
The difference between visibility and impact comes down to understanding intent. Not every football fan is equally receptive to a brand message, and not every page view signals genuine engagement.
During major sporting events, audiences move between match coverage, transfer rumors, national team narratives, player stories, entertainment content, and countless adjacent interests. Within those moments lie valuable signals that can help brands identify when consumers are most open to engagement.
The question is no longer how to reach World Cup audiences. It is about identifying the moments when attention becomes meaningful engagement.
Below, we explore the audience insights shaping fan behavior during the tournament and how automotive brands can use Neuro-Contextual advertising to transform World Cup attention into meaningful consideration.
Key Takeaways
- The difference between a browser and an engaged consumer often lies in intent signals, not audience segments.
- World Cup audiences engage with far more than football, creating valuable opportunities across adjacent interests and passion points.
- Emotions such as excitement, curiosity, admiration, and optimism play a key role in how fans engage with content throughout the tournament.
- Neuro-Contextual advertising goes beyond keywords and categories to align messaging with interests, emotions, and intent.
- Dynamic creative optimization allows automotive campaigns to adapt in real time around tournament moments, audience context, and sentiment.
The Gap Between Looking and Engaging
Scale is not the challenge. During a World Cup, automotive brands can reach millions of consumers across the open web, connected TV, and streaming environments.
The challenge is identifying the difference between someone casually consuming content and someone demonstrating signals of genuine engagement.
Traditional targeting approaches often rely on keywords, categories, or broad audience segments. A page mentions "SUVs" or "electric vehicles," and an ad is served. While these signals can provide relevance, they do not always reveal what matters most: what the consumer is thinking, feeling, or looking for in that moment.
A reader exploring vehicle reviews out of curiosity may require a very different message from someone actively comparing models ahead of a purchase. Understanding that distinction helps brands move beyond simple reach and toward meaningful engagement.
Where Fan Attention Really Goes
One of the biggest misconceptions about the World Cup is that fans spend the tournament focused exclusively on football.
In reality, audience attention extends across a much broader ecosystem of content.
Audience interest also evolves throughout the tournament. Our insights show that engagement increases significantly during key moments such as the group stage, quarter-finals, and high-tension knockout rounds. Importantly, some of the largest spikes are driven not only by match results but also by player narratives, rivalries, and stories surrounding the competition.
Football-related interests such as domestic leagues, transfer rumors, national team stories, and club rivalries remain major drivers of engagement. But fans also spend time consuming content connected to celebrity culture, motorsports, entertainment, lifestyle topics, and national identity narratives.
These adjacent interests are not distractions from football fandom. They are part of how fans experience the tournament.
For automotive marketers, this creates additional opportunities to connect with audiences in contexts that may be less crowded than traditional sports environments while still maintaining strong relevance to fan interests.
Understanding these passion points allows brands to expand beyond match-day targeting and build a more comprehensive view of where their audiences spend time and attention.
The Emotional Signals Behind Engagement
The World Cup is not only a media event. It is an emotional one.
Across markets, football content generates a range of emotional responses, including excitement, curiosity, admiration, optimism, and even sadness. These emotions shift throughout the tournament as audiences react to victories, defeats, player performances, speculation, and national narratives.
While excitement consistently emerges as one of the strongest drivers of engagement, emotional responses vary across markets. Some audiences gravitate toward stories of national pride and sporting heroes, while others engage more deeply with tournament speculation, player narratives, or broader cultural conversations surrounding the event. Understanding these nuances can help brands deliver more relevant messaging throughout the competition.
For automotive brands, these signals offer valuable context. The emotions that shape engagement during the tournament can also influence how consumers respond to brand messaging, particularly in categories where consideration and aspiration play an important role.
Many vehicle purchase journeys are influenced by emotional factors alongside practical considerations. Curiosity about new technology, optimism about future ownership, excitement around a new model, and aspiration tied to lifestyle choices all play a role in consideration.
When brands understand the emotional context surrounding content consumption, they can align messaging more effectively with the consumer's interests, emotions, and intent in that moment.
How the Neuro-Contextual Approach Changes Automotive Marketing
Industry-standard targeting often relies on predefined content taxonomies and broad category classifications. Neuro-contextual approaches take a different path by analyzing content more deeply to understand interests, emotions, and intent signals in real time.
The difference between targeting a broad automotive category and identifying audiences such as Family Upgraders, First-Time Car Buyers, Urban Drivers, or Off-Road Adventure Enthusiasts is significant.
Rather than focusing solely on what content someone is consuming, Neuro-Contextual intelligence helps brands understand why that content matters to them.
For automotive marketers, this means identifying environments where signals of curiosity, optimism, excitement, and consideration are already present and aligning messaging accordingly.
The goal is not simply to be present. It is to be relevant.
Dynamic Creative That Moves With the Tournament
The World Cup unfolds in phases, and audience behavior evolves with it.
Interest levels rise during key matches, emotional intensity increases during knockout rounds, and fan conversations shift as new narratives emerge.
The content driving engagement during the group stage may be very different from the stories capturing attention during the quarter-finals or final, making flexibility a critical advantage for advertisers.
Creative should evolve alongside those changes.
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) allows campaigns to adapt messaging based on factors such as tournament stage, location, time of day, weather conditions, and emotional sentiment.
A message delivered during a high-tension quarter-final may require a different creative approach than one served during the group stage. Likewise, audiences engaging with family-focused content may respond differently than audiences consuming performance or technology-related content.
By aligning creative with context, brands can create more relevant experiences throughout the tournament.
Measuring What Actually Matters
Clicks and viewability remain useful metrics, but they do not tell the full story.
For automotive brands operating within long and consideration-heavy purchase journeys, understanding campaign impact requires a broader measurement framework.
Attention metrics help reveal whether advertising was genuinely processed by consumers. Brand lift studies can demonstrate shifts in awareness, perception, and consideration. Incremental reach helps determine whether campaigns are connecting with new audiences rather than repeatedly reaching the same users.
Together, these measurements provide a clearer view of how campaigns influence consumer behavior throughout the World Cup journey.
From Research to the Road
The FIFA World Cup 2026 presents a unique convergence of attention, emotion, and engagement.
Success will not belong solely to the brands with the largest budgets or the widest reach. It will belong to those who understand where fan attention is going, what emotions are driving engagement, and how to identify moments of genuine intent.
Traditional research helps identify the audience. Neuro-contextual intelligence helps identify the moment.
And during the world's biggest sporting event, that difference can determine whether a campaign is simply seen or truly remembered.
To learn more about the audience insights, emotional signals, and activation opportunities shaping FIFA World Cup 2026 campaigns, download the full Automotive Insights report.
Every year, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity offers a glimpse into where advertising is heading next. But in 2025, the conversations across the Croisette felt especially revealing.
At the heart of Cannes Lions 2025 was a growing realization that the future of advertising will depend less on identifying audiences and more on understanding people. Across beachfront stages, private dinners, podcast studios, and conversations inside the Palais des Festivals, the industry repeatedly returned to the same challenge: how can brands create more relevant experiences in an increasingly fragmented, AI-driven media landscape?
For Seedtag, Cannes 2025 became an important moment to help shape that conversation.
Throughout the week, Seedtag explored how Neuro-Contextual Advertising is redefining the relationship between media, creativity, and human understanding. From discussions around AI and emotional relevance to debates about journalism, contextual intelligence, and audience mindset, the company’s presence reflected a broader industry shift already reshaping modern advertising.
And now, as the industry prepares for another year in Cannes, France, those conversations are evolving even further.
Key Takeaways
- The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity highlighted the industry’s move from audience profiling toward deeper human understanding.
- Cannes Lions 2025 conversations focused heavily on AI, contextual relevance, emotional engagement, and privacy-first advertising.
- Seedtag’s Neuro-Contextual approach emerged as part of a broader industry shift toward understanding interest, emotion, and intent.
- Creativity, media, and data became increasingly interconnected across the Cannes Lions International Festival.
- New discussions heading into Cannes 2026 are expanding beyond targeting and toward adaptive, human-aware advertising experiences.
What Cannes Lions 2025 Revealed About Advertising
The International Festival of Creativity has always reflected the priorities of the advertising industry. In 2025, those priorities shifted noticeably.
Artificial intelligence dominated discussions across nearly every stage and meeting space. But while AI remained central, the industry conversation matured significantly compared to previous years. The focus was no longer simply on automation or content generation. Instead, marketers increasingly questioned how technology can help advertising become more meaningful, more adaptive, and more emotionally aligned with people.
That tension defined much of Cannes Lions 2025.
Consumers today move fluidly between streaming platforms, creator ecosystems, social content, sports, commerce, and live cultural moments. Attention is fragmented, audience behavior changes constantly, and traditional identity-based targeting models are becoming less effective in a privacy-first world.
As a result, the industry is beginning to rethink what relevance actually means.
For us at Seedtag, that conversation connected directly to Neuro-Contextual Advertising. Rather than relying on static audience profiles or demographic assumptions, our approach focuses on understanding real-time signals of interest, emotion, and intent across the open web and premium media environments.
The idea is simple: people are more than profiles.
And increasingly, the advertising industry is starting to agree.
From Profiles to Passions
One of the defining conversations during Cannes 2025 centered on the limitations of traditional targeting.
For years, digital advertising has relied heavily on demographic segmentation and behavioral assumptions. But across the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, industry leaders repeatedly discussed the need to move beyond identity alone and focus more deeply on audience mindset, context, and motivation.
We explored this shift directly during the live crossover episode of AdTech Heroes x The Pub Way, hosted at The Drum’s podcast studio.
The conversation brought together leaders from across media, creative, and advertising to discuss how brands can better engage audiences through real-time understanding rather than static assumptions.
A recurring theme emerged quickly: marketers have spent years trying to understand who consumers are, while paying far less attention to why they engage in the first place.
That distinction matters.
People are shaped by passions, interests, emotions, and cultural moments that evolve continuously. Someone watching sports content during a major tournament may not respond to messaging the same way they would while reading financial news or consuming entertainment content later in the day.
Context changes mindset.
This idea became central to many discussions throughout the Cannes Lions International Festival. Relevance is no longer about reaching the right demographic. It is about understanding the emotional and cognitive environment surrounding attention itself.
AI Became About Understanding, Not Just Automation
AI remained one of the dominant themes across Cannes, France, but the industry conversation evolved significantly compared to previous years.
Earlier conversations around AI often focused on speed, scale, and automation. At Cannes Lions 2025, the emphasis shifted toward intelligence, adaptability, and human understanding.
Marketers are now asking more complex questions. How can AI help interpret the audience mindset? How can it improve contextual relevance? How can it support creativity without reducing advertising to generic automation?
These discussions appeared repeatedly across panels, roundtables, and private conversations.
Our perspective centered on the idea that AI should not simply optimize delivery. It should help brands better understand the moments in which people engage with content.
This is where Neuro-Contextual Advertising becomes increasingly relevant.
By combining neuroscience principles with AI-powered contextual understanding, Liz, our Neuo-Contextual AI, is designed to interpret signals of interest, emotion, and intent in real time. The goal is not to identify individuals, but to understand the meaning surrounding the moment itself.
That approach reflects a larger shift happening across the industry.
Advertising is moving away from static targeting systems and toward adaptive environments capable of responding dynamically to changing emotional and contextual signals.
Creativity and Context Are Becoming Reconnected
Another major theme across the Palais des Festivals was the growing relationship between creativity and contextual relevance.
For years, programmatic advertising has often separated creative storytelling from media strategy. But at Cannes Lions 2025, many industry leaders argued that creativity can no longer function independently from context and audience understanding.
As media environments become increasingly fragmented, brands face growing pressure to create campaigns that feel synchronized with the emotional tone surrounding the content experience.
This is especially important across premium video, streaming, and creator-driven ecosystems where audiences expect advertising to feel more integrated and less disruptive.
Throughout the week, conversations increasingly focused on how creative effectiveness improves when messaging aligns with the real-time audience mindset.
That shift is transforming how marketers think about personalization itself.
Rather than personalizing around identity, advertisers are beginning to personalize around context, emotion, and intent.
This idea also appeared in conversations surrounding contextual TV, curated supply, and premium media environments. Brands are looking for advertising experiences that feel more thoughtful, more emotionally aware, and more aligned with the content moments consumers actively choose to engage with.
Journalism, Trust, and Smarter Contextual Understanding
Beyond AI and creativity, Cannes Lions 2025 also highlighted growing industry concerns around journalism, trust, and responsible monetization.
We participated in discussions exploring how rigid keyword blocklists and simplistic brand safety systems can unintentionally harm quality journalism.
This became an important conversation across the International Festival of Creativity because advertisers increasingly recognize that brand safety cannot rely exclusively on broad exclusions or outdated contextual assumptions.
High-quality journalism covering politics, climate, economics, or global conflict often becomes demonetized despite offering trusted, premium environments for advertisers.
That creates a difficult contradiction for the media ecosystem.
The solution discussed throughout Cannes 2025 was not abandoning brand safety altogether, but evolving toward more intelligent contextual systems capable of understanding nuance, tone, and meaning more effectively.
This conversation reinforced one of the industry’s broader shifts: context is becoming more sophisticated.
Modern contextual understanding is no longer limited to keywords alone. It increasingly depends on a deeper interpretation of emotional tone, audience mindset, and environmental relevance.
Looking Ahead to Cannes Lions 2026
As the industry prepares for the next Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, many of the conversations that defined 2025 are continuing to evolve.
This year, we will expand those discussions further at La Perle, our Cannes space designed for meetings, collaborative sessions, workshops, and thought leadership conversations.
The upcoming agenda reflects many of the themes that emerged throughout Cannes Lions 2025.
Sessions such as “The End of Guesswork: How to Reach Consumers Who Are Actually Ready to Listen” will explore how advertisers can move beyond stale targeting proxies and align campaigns with real-time emotion, interest, and intent.
Other conversations will focus on curated supply, contextual TV, AI and creativity, neuroscience, media responsibility, and human-centered advertising experiences.
We will also introduce experiential activations such as the “Scent of Context” lab, an immersive workshop designed to explore how emotion, memory, and sensory environments shape contextual understanding.
Together, these experiences reflect a broader evolution happening across advertising itself.
The industry is no longer asking only how to target people more efficiently. It is asking how to better understand the emotional and cognitive moments that shape attention.
From Profiles to Human Understanding
Looking back, Cannes Lions 2025 represented more than another industry gathering. It reflected a meaningful turning point in how advertising thinks about relevance.
AI became more mature. Context became more intelligent. Creativity became more connected to audience's mindset. And marketers increasingly recognized that understanding people requires more than data points alone.
For us at Seedtag, those conversations continue shaping the future of Neuro-Contextual Advertising.
Because the future of advertising will not belong to the brands that know the most about consumers. It will belong to the brands that understand the moment best.
And increasingly, that future is becoming more human-aware.
Every four years, the FIFA World Cup becomes more than a sporting event. It becomes a global cultural ecosystem where passion, identity, emotion, and attention collide in real time.
For sports brands, that creates an enormous opportunity, but also a challenge.
Because in 2026, the best sports marketing strategies will not be defined by visibility alone. They will be defined by the ability to understand how sports fans think, feel, and engage throughout the tournament.
During the World Cup, sports fans do not engage with football in isolation. They move between transfer rumors, national team pride, multisport interests, player storylines, jersey culture, and live match moments that evolve by the hour.
In the UK alone, more than 90% of World Cup-related engagement connects directly to football content, while adjacent passions, including celebrity culture, Formula 1, boxing, and cricket, continue shaping how fans experience the tournament.
That shift is transforming how sports marketing campaigns are planned.
To better understand these evolving fan behaviors, Liz, our Neuro-Contextual AI, analyzed World Cup and football-related media consumption across key markets, uncovering the emotional signals, passion points, and engagement patterns shaping fan engagement during the tournament.
The findings reveal something important: World Cup advertising is no longer about chasing audiences. It is about understanding the moments that move them.
Key Takeaways
- The best sports marketing strategies during the World Cup are built around emotion, timing, and contextual relevance
- Football-related content drives 90.6% of World Cup topic engagement in the UK, while adjacent cultural interests create additional engagement opportunities
- Peak fan attention occurs during knockout rounds and emotionally intense moments, not only during the final
- Excitement is the strongest emotional driver of World Cup engagement, especially in the UK and France
- Sports marketing trends increasingly rely on understanding interest, emotion, and intent rather than static demographic targeting
- Real-time creative optimization and contextual alignment help sports brands create engaging campaigns during live sporting moments
Why the World Cup Is Reshaping Sports Marketing Strategies
The FIFA World Cup has always delivered massive scale. Few sports events rival its global reach, emotional intensity, or cultural relevance.
But scale alone no longer guarantees impact.
Today’s sports fans consume the tournament across a much broader ecosystem of content and conversation. They follow player narratives long before kickoff and continue engaging long after the final whistle. Transfer rumors, team selection debates, jersey launches, multisport interests, and celebrity storylines all become part of how fans experience the tournament.
This creates a far more dynamic attention landscape for brands.
Instead of relying on broad reach or static audience profiles, sports marketing strategies now require a deeper understanding of how attention evolves throughout the tournament.
The World Cup has become an environment driven by moments. Moments of anticipation. Moments of pride. Moments of tension. Moments of celebration. Moments of curiosity.
The brands that succeed are the ones capable of aligning with those moments while they are happening.
That shift is also changing how the broader sports media ecosystem approaches advertising innovation.
In episode 33 of The PubWay podcast, Scott Young, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Transmit, explained that sports streaming platforms are under growing pressure to rethink how advertising experiences work during live sports. As subscription growth slows and media rights become increasingly fragmented, ad-supported streaming models are becoming central to the future of sports monetization.
But according to Young, sustaining viewer attention is now the real challenge.
Media companies are no longer focused only on inserting more ads. They are looking for ways to create more dynamic, personalized, and conversational advertising experiences that feel integrated into the viewing moment rather than disruptive to it.
That idea sits at the center of modern World Cup advertising.
What Sports Fans Actually Care About During the World Cup
One of the most important findings from our World Cup Sports Goods insights is that fan attention extends far beyond football itself.
In the UK, 90.6% of visits related to World Cup topics directly connect to football content. But even within football, engagement is layered across multiple passion points.
The largest driver of engagement comes from domestic leagues and football giants, representing 68.1% of football-related interest. Fans actively follow club performance, tactical discussions, and league narratives throughout the year.
Transfer market conversations account for another 15.4% of engagement, proving that speculation and player movement remain central to fan behavior even outside active transfer windows.
National pride and legacy discussions generate an additional 7.1% of engagement, especially around qualification journeys and national team performance heading into the tournament.
But the opportunity expands even further when brands look beyond football-only environments.
Connected interests also play a major role in fan engagement. Royal and celebrity connections linked to football personalities generate 4.4% of engagement. Multisport interests, including boxing, Formula 1, and cricket, contribute another 2.6%. WAGs and celebrity culture account for an additional 2.4% of engagement.
This is where some of the best sports marketing strategies emerge.
Rather than limiting campaigns to match-day inventory alone, brands can connect with sports fans across adjacent moments where attention and emotional engagement are already active.
Because during the World Cup, fan identity stretches far beyond the pitch.
How Fan Behavior Changes Across Markets
Another major insight from the report is that sports fans are not homogeneous.
Every market engages with the World Cup differently, with unique passion points shaping how audiences consume content.
In the UK, fans heavily follow domestic leagues, club giants, and transfer rumors, while celebrity culture and multisport interests strongly influence engagement.
In Spain, national team patriotism drives 34% of engagement, alongside growing interest in women’s football and practical viewing solutions.
French audiences gravitate toward domestic football rivalries and multisport content, including rugby, tennis, and golf.
German audiences, meanwhile, remain highly engaged with club routines, qualification updates, and broader football debates.
These differences matter because successful sports marketing campaigns cannot rely on a one-size-fits-all approach.
The World Cup may be global, but passion remains deeply local.
That is why the best sports marketing strategies adapt creative, messaging and contextual alignment to the cultural DNA of each audience.
The Emotional Side of World Cup Advertising
If interest explains what captures attention, emotion explains what drives engagement.
According to our analysis, excitement is the single strongest emotional driver during the World Cup, especially among UK and French audiences.
But emotion during the tournament is far more layered than celebration alone.
Fans also engage through curiosity, admiration, optimism, and even sadness.
Spanish and German audiences show particularly high levels of admiration toward global football stars and club legends. Italian audiences display stronger optimism while also consuming emotionally heavier football stories that drive social conversation.
This emotional diversity changes how sports brands should think about fan engagement.
Brands can no longer depend exclusively on broad contextual categories or keyword targeting. They need to understand how audiences feel within each moment.
That emotional alignment becomes especially powerful during knockout rounds, national team milestones, emotional victories, player comeback stories, jersey launches, and moments of national pride.
When creative reflects emotional context, campaigns feel more natural, more timely, and more relevant.
Scott Young described this shift during The PubWay episode by explaining that the strongest advertising experiences in live sports are the ones that speak to viewers based on what they are actively watching and feeling in that exact moment.
In practice, that could mean dynamically adapting creative around a major winning moment, a dramatic comeback, or a crucial goal.
It is no longer just about serving an ad during a live game. It is about aligning with the emotional energy surrounding it.
When Sports Fans Pay the Most Attention
One of the clearest patterns is how attention intensifies around key tournament stages.
Our analysis of previous football competitions reveals that traffic increased 4.3x during men’s quarterfinals compared to normal days, while women’s tournament traffic increased 3x during quarterfinals.
Live events themselves generate major audience activation spikes. But interestingly, the biggest engagement surges are not always driven by goals or tactics.
Many viral moments center around emotional narratives, celebrity culture, player personal lives, confrontation stories, and behind-the-scenes content.
This changes how sports brands should think about timing.
The best sports marketing strategies are not limited to the final or the biggest live sports moments. They are built around the emotional rhythm of the tournament itself.
That includes pre-match anticipation, qualification tension, transfer speculation, jersey release conversations, national pride, and post-match reactions.
Attention during the World Cup behaves like a wave, not a straight line. And increasingly, advertising innovation is being built around that reality.
Young also explained during the podcast that advertisers are seeing stronger results when contextual timing, emotional relevance, and messaging work together inside live sports environments.
According to the study mentioned in the episode, viewers exposed to integrated in-content ad experiences demonstrated 10x greater message recall compared to traditional ad pod experiences.
When timing and contextual alignment improved, viewers were also 20% more likely to scan and purchase.
That reinforces a growing reality within sports marketing trends: Attention alone is not enough. Relevance is what drives action.
How Sports Brands Should Plan World Cup Advertising Campaigns
So how should sports brands approach World Cup advertising in 2026?
The report points toward a major strategic shift away from static targeting and toward contextual understanding.
Fans no longer engage as broad demographic groups. They engage through interests, emotional identities, and passion ecosystems.
Some audiences follow jersey culture and kit releases. Others engage through multisport interests, football gaming, sports fashion, player admiration, or national identity.
That means sports marketing campaigns need to become more fluid and responsive.
Creative also needs to evolve alongside fan behavior.
That is why creative is becoming more dynamic during live sports moments, adapting in real time based on factors like competition stage, emotion, weather, location, and fan mindset.
The goal is not simply to increase visibility during sports events. It is to create engaging experiences that feel synchronized with the emotions surrounding the moment.
That is especially important in streaming and CTV environments, where sports fans increasingly consume content across connected viewing experiences.
Our report also highlights how contextual TV targeting can combine Open Web intelligence with enriched CTV signals to better align messaging with audience interests and viewing behaviors in real time.
For sports brands, this creates an opportunity to move beyond generic sponsorship visibility and toward more emotionally aware advertising experiences.
Turning Attention Into Advantage With Neuro-Contextual Advertising
At the center of this approach is Liz, our Neuro-Contextual AI.
Rather than relying exclusively on keywords or static contextual categories, Liz analyzes interest, emotion, and intent signals in real time to understand why audiences engage with specific content moments.
For sports brands, this creates a more responsive approach to fan engagement.
Our Sports Goods analysis highlights how brands can identify positive emotional responses, purchase intent signals, national team excitement, jersey demand moments, and emotionally engaged fan segments.
For example, fans actively searching for upcoming national jersey releases represent high-intent engagement moments tied directly to excitement, optimism, and desire.
This allows sports brands to move beyond static targeting and connect with audiences while interest is actively building.
Because in the end, the future of sports marketing strategies is not about reaching the largest possible audience. It is about understanding the moments that matter most.
Where Sports Marketing Goes Next
The FIFA World Cup continues to evolve from a sports tournament into a global attention ecosystem.
That shift is redefining World Cup advertising.
The brands that win during the tournament will not simply be the loudest. They will be the most relevant. The most emotionally aligned. The most contextually aware.
Because modern sports fans do not experience the tournament through a single behavior or a single passion point. They move fluidly between live match moments, transfer speculation, emotional storylines, sports culture, and real-time conversations that shape how the World Cup is experienced across the open web and streaming environments.
Get your Sports Goods Insigts
Align product demand with national team engagement and tournament milestones
Understanding those moments is what transforms visibility into engagement
And increasingly, that is what separates presence from performance in modern sports marketing campaigns.
To explore the full FIFA World Cup 2026 Sports Goods insights deck and uncover deeper fan engagement trends, emotional signals, and activation opportunities across markets, download the Sports Goods insight report from Seedtag.
You can also check out Episode 33 of The PubWay Podcast, “Ad Innovation in Live Sports Streaming,” to explore how live sports, streaming innovation, and contextual advertising are reshaping fan engagement during major global sporting events.
Notre blog
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The International Festival of Creativity, Cannes Lions 2024, just wrapped in the French Riviera. It was action-packed as the advertising and communications industry convened for a week of world-class networking, learning, and extraordinary creativity.
The Seedtag team was thrilled to be a part of the festival, meeting partners, clients, and colleagues to explore The Power of Context, Uniting Innovation, Connection, and Creativity.
Our HQ was an uber cool penthouse suite where we welcomed people from all over the world to our exclusive Seedtag brunches, apéros and more. We also partnered with AdAge for an insightful panel discussion on the advantage of contextual AI hosted on the swanky VaynerX yacht. For a record third time, our podcast AdTech Heroes was live-streamed from Cannes, this time with a special crossover episode with The Pub Way podcast!
What are the key takeaways from the sessions at the Riviera? Mike Villalobos, VP of Strategy and Planning at Seedtag, shares all the details.
Top 3 takeaways from Cannes Lions 2024
- Contextual Advertising Strides Ahead
Contextual is all the buzz and having a pivotal resurgence given all of the legislation around privacy and user tracking limitations. While contextual has been around for a while, Seedtag’s ability to process and organize big data while leveraging custom LLMs positions the new approach to contextual as a key piece in conversations around a multitude of audience interests and first-party data. It is all about the consumer – not an assumption of who they are but their passions . But how can we transparently collect this information? Giving consumers the power to control how their data is being used beneficially and respectfully.
The world is tired of the constant conversational chaos around cookies and other identifiers going away, but the deprecation is imminent. We can’t continue to rely on third party cookies or device identifiers for much longer; those who do will most definitely be on the backfoot trying to sort through planning, targeting and attribution as they will not be ready for the future of advertising. Today, the focus lies on building a future-proof advertising strategy that pinpoints relevance – right place, right time, right audience. Advertisers are choosing the contextual route and enriching their strategies by augmenting efforts with their first-party data to display ads that truly resonate with consumers. With contextual, advertisers have a privacy-first alternative to intrusive, stereotypical, and oftentimes stale advertising practices that don’t fit the bill anymore.
- Contextual TV is the place to be
As CTV continues to disrupt the traditional TV ad market, new strengths and challenges emerge. Both buyers and sellers alike are navigating the changing landscape with telcos/OEMs now monetizing data to help buyers achieve better yields. The CTV advertising playbook is undergoing an overhaul, and the focus shifts to evoking watchers’ emotions and leverage what they might feel. While ads on linear TV do that well, they haven’t always translated to CTV ads just yet.
There was a spotlight on the key investment drivers and challenges buyers face, how sellers are aligning to meet that demand, and the difficulties around data and measurement. With increased competition and tighter ad budgets, price cuts might be among the few levers CTV players can pull to boost demand. Also, many TV manufacturers are eager to become advertising players in their own right thus fueling intense competition and uneasy collaboration, given their carriage agreements.
- It’s the Generative AI revolution
GenAI was the most discussed topic of the week at Cannes, captured in almost every booth and presentation. Beyond general topics, the emphasis was on real-world applications, their evolution, and use cases. GenAI's disruption in the creative space and impact on media production was truly the talk of the town.
The influence of GenAI on ad technology and its possible effect on agency productivity, as well as the scale of ad technology vendors and publishers, were also discussed. Other areas of interest in the GenAI space revolved around how it can be leveraged to access cleaner data and direct touchpoints with consumers to create more personalized marketing, how this data is a new form of research for brands to gain consumer insights, and the progress with use cases, approaches, and new applications like GenAI for image technology.
Curious to know more about how you can partner with us and leverage contextual advertising, CTV, or GenAI capabilities to catapult your advertising strategy? Let’s talk!
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This year’s Digiday Media Awards winners celebrate new technologies and the power of partnerships throughout their digital media campaigns. Themes across 2024’s winners include leaning into a surge in short-form video content as consumption for dithe format increases, implementing more interactive storytelling and tech like VR and AR, as well as harnessing collaborations for impactful and innovative campaigns.
Seedtag's contextual AI was named the best at the Digiday Media Awards, highlighting the importance of privacy-first solutions in shaping the future of digital advertising.
The Digiday Media Awards recognize companies all over the world modernizing digital media and have over the years honored industry-leading work from The New York Times, Salesforce, PopSugar, and many more. This year's awards acknowledge the hard work and dedication Seedtag has put into its offerings over the last decade. By continuously innovating and expanding its contextual AI technology, Liz, the company successfully meets the ever-changing needs of advertisers in the dynamic digital landscape.
With Seedtag, brands and agencies effectively reach their target audience through user's real-time interests, enabling sustainable advertising at scale across the open web and CTV. As third-party cookies are being deprecated from all major web browsers, this award affirms the power of contextual AI in reaching consumers on a privacy-first basis, setting the course for the future of digital advertising.
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It's the most colorful month of the year! Bring on the rainbows and queer. June is celebrated globally as #PrideMonth to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. The first Pride marches were held in 1970, one year after Stonewall, and have continued ever since.
Pride Month is a time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community's history, culture, and achievements. It's also a time to understand the oppression and discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community and raise awareness about the issues the community still faces today. The month of pride fights for equal justice and opportunity.
The march toward a more equal and inclusive world
Bright, bold colors, flamboyant outfits, and rainbow flags; The Pride Month parades are unique and bursting with energy. The marches present an opportunity for the people of the LGBTQ+ community and straight allies to show their solidarity and support, express freedom, and celebrate diversity.
The beauty of the pride parade is its inclusivity. People of all ages, races, ethnicities, and gender identities come together to celebrate identity, history, and the ongoing fight for equality. Overall, Pride Month focuses on raising awareness about LGBTQ+ rights, highlighting the challenges faced by the community like inequality and discrimination, and advocating for change.
Seedtag: Taking a step forward
In the ongoing struggle for equality, pride marches bring LGBTQ+ people and allies together. While progress has been made over the years, there’s still a long way to go. Brands play a pivotal role in addressing the struggles faced by the community by raising awareness and promoting understanding.
A cornerstone in this global movement is the steps brands take to shift from conventional stereotypes and build a more inclusive advertising landscape. Brands can show their support for LGBTQ+ rights by creating inclusive marketing campaigns that challenge stereotypes, celebrate diversity, and even feature LGBTQ+ people in their advertising.
Brands play a pivotal role in building the bridge towards a more inclusive advertising landscape. What values must brands embody in advertising strategies to create more inclusive campaigns?
Perspective
Representation
Inclusivity
Diversity
Empowerment
The five-pronged approach to advertising ensures a non-biased targeting strategy that helps brands consciously take great strides forward, welcome all, and create a more inclusive world.
Key takeaways: How to create an inclusive advertising strategy
- Capture diverse perspectives and viewpoints within your strategies to create messaging that strikes a chord with a larger audience base.
- Go beyond the stereotypes and traditional cohorts and represent a diverse audience that makes them feel connected to your brand and narrative.
- Champion inclusivity with messaging and targeting that fosters a sense of unity and belonging.
- Incorporate diverse narratives to capture a larger audience share with inclusive messaging that truly resonates.
- Make people the heart and soul of your narrative, empower them to define their own identity, establish authentic connections, and build long-standing customer relationships.
So, how can brands act on these ideas and build the bridge toward more inclusive ad strategies?
New-age technologies help brands understand and connect with their audiences better. Advanced advertising strategies transcend demographic data and traditional audience segmentation and rely on contextual relevance to engage users.
By displaying ads that align with the content the audience is engaging with in real-time, brands appeal to the unique interests of users. Leveraging non-discriminatory targeting practices that transcend assumptions and traditional cohorts empowers brands to reach a diverse audience. This includes individuals from various demographic groups, ethnicities, and genders.
Hyper-personalized messaging and creatives enable brands to connect with people from all backgrounds and identities effectively. The new era of advertising is inspiring brands to leave stereotypes behind and embrace an interest-based targeting approach that sparks instant connections and aligns with myriad passions, interests, and voices.
Elevate your contextual advertising game with us!
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In today’s increasingly competitive digital advertising landscape, the most important metric brands are vying for is attention. Brands want to establish themselves, actively engage with consumers, and build a loyal customer base that values the specific brand and everything it stands for.
Amidst all the chaos, brands taking steps to make their presence felt and garner audience attention must focus on a key factor: context. Advertisers have always prioritized the content and creatives that go on every ad and the target audience. But just content and targeting don’t make the cut anymore. Beyond the traditional elements, the content surrounding an ad also plays a crucial role in determining its impact on the audience.
Customers are quick to express their displeasure when irrelevant ads disrupt their browsing experience. While creating a compelling ad strategy is important, the context of an ad setting and the content accompanying an ad are equally important. The shift to a brand safety-first, contextual approach is not just being fueled by the demise of third-party cookies and the implementation of data privacy regulation but the need for contextually relevant advertising strategies.
What makes context in advertising essential?
While technology may have opened up a myriad of new channels and ad placements, when and where they meet a consumer makes all the difference. Imagine you’re reading an article on climate change and its impact and an ad for a new sports car breaks your flow. What if you search for a mountain bike once and it disrupts your online shopping experience with ads weeks later? That’s why they say context is king.
A study by DoubleVerify revealed that 69% of consumers are more likely to look at an ad if it is relevant to the content they are reading.
67% of consumers said they are open to viewing relevant ads from new brands while 44% said they have tried a specific brand after seeing a relevant ad alongside a piece of content they were consuming.
Contextual irrelevance can impact a brand beyond just attention metrics. Brands need to ensure their ads are displayed in an environment that is safe, relevant, and aligns with their values and brand image.
Prioritizing brand safety and brand suitability
Brand safety refers to the set of practices that help protect a brand’s image and reputation by ensuring it is not associated with inappropriate content or undesirable material online. Brand safety measures help prevent mismatches that can severely impact brand image. For example, imagine an organic baby food company’s ad appearing in an article about pesticide overuse. Such improper ad placements can damage the brand's image and erode consumer trust.
Brand safety measures protect reputation and display ads in a brand-safe and appropriate environment, preventing wastage of ad spend by ensuring ads are not placed next to irrelevant content that is unlikely to be effective. Brand suitability is an evolution of brand safety that goes beyond just avoiding the negative and aligns the brand with content that resonates with its values and target audience.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), has established guidelines to improve the safety and suitability of digital advertising. Understanding the GARM brand safety floor and suitability framework is integral to achieving brand safety and suitability. It enables brands to identify hazardous content or content that conveys an incorrect message about the brand’s values, ultimately improving brand alignment.
Going a Step Ahead with a Contextual Approach to Brand Safety
Brand safety vs brand suitability is no longer just about avoiding inappropriate content. It’s about strategically placing ads where they are most effective. A contextual approach empowers brands to achieve the highest levels of brand safety and suitability. The targeting strategy enables brands to reach target audiences within relevant contexts at the most opportune times, thus increasing the effectiveness of digital advertising campaigns.
Strategical ad placements create positive associations with the content and environment they appear in and allow brands to showcase their values while targeting audiences who share similar values.
Furthermore, demand-side platforms (DSPs) play a crucial role in ensuring that brands can fine-tune their targeting to match the most relevant user-generated content without compromising on brand safety measures. By leveraging AI-powered brand safety vs. brand suitability strategies, advertisers can mitigate risks and optimize their ad spend efficiently.
The Role of Contextual Technology in Brand Safety
As advertising continues to evolve, new technologies are enabling brands to implement more precise brand safety measures. AI-driven solutions analyze the context of web pages to determine their suitability for specific brand messaging, ensuring ads appear in a high-quality environment. This not only protects the brand but also enhances engagement by aligning with the right content.
Advertisers working with demand-side platforms can leverage contextual intelligence to avoid content that may pose risks and instead focus on placing ads in meaningful digital spaces. This ensures better campaign performance and strengthens consumer trust in the brand’s commitment to responsible advertising.
The Future of Brand Safety and Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising empowers brands to achieve the highest levels of brand safety and suitability. The targeting strategy enables brands to reach target audiences within relevant contexts at the most opportune times, thus increasing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Strategical ad placements create positive associations with the content and environment they appear in and allow brands to showcase their values and target audiences who share similar values.
As the digital ecosystem continues to evolve, advertisers must take proactive steps to ensure high-quality ad placements that align with their brand identity. Concepts of brand safety are no longer about merely avoiding harm but about fostering positive connections between brands and consumers.
With the right blend of brand safety and suitability measures in place, contextual advertising avoids negative content and strategically places ads to maximize impact and brand alignment. By integrating brand safety measures, leveraging demand-side platforms, and prioritizing safety and suitability, brands can confidently invest in digital advertising without compromising their reputation. A contextual approach will continue to shape the future of advertising, ensuring ads reach the right audience in the right environment.
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It’s no secret that independent ad agencies are becoming more appealing to big brands. Traditionally, larger advertising agencies have enjoyed a competitive edge thanks to their substantial budgets that enable investments in cutting-edge platforms and systems. However, with the advent of powerful AI for advertising, the playing field is undergoing a transformative shift, allowing independent agencies to enhance their capabilities and appeal.
There are several advantages that independent agencies currently enjoy. First, these creative agencies are often in a much better position to understand local and regional markets. Brands need to understand, speak to, and reach people at these local levels. National branding messaging can risk alienating individuals or failing to connect with them. Similarly, national media plans often miss large cohorts of consumers or spend disproportionately on large publishers for easy reach while overlooking more trusted and better-indexing publishers in their respective local markets.
Indie agencies are better positioned to understand these levels as well as better suited to execute on them.
They are more likely to have local and regional knowledge of an area's culture & media sources, which makes it easier to develop more informed and relevant messaging and media strategies.
Secondly, independent ad agencies tend to be much more agile and collaborative than their holding company counterparts. Therefore, they are able to unify creative, strategy, and media agency teams to work more closely together instead of as separate parts. With fewer departments and shareholders, as well as less hierarchy and politics than networked ad agencies, independent agencies have more of a chance to present and share work they really believe in—work that hasn’t gone through as many stages. All the things that can get in the way of great ideas—those internal barriers—are stripped away, bolstering creativity and allowing the agency team to thrive.
AI Levels The Playing Field
According to a Gartner survey, nearly 63% of marketing leaders plan to invest in AI for advertising over the next year. With this growing interest, let’s examine how independent ad agencies are currently leveraging AI to become even more impactful.
Beyond the ad agency world, countless businesses and organizations use AI for advertising to streamline their workflows. Whether it’s through automating routine tasks, brainstorming visual/copy concepts, or streamlining market/campaign research, competition is about to heat up.
Independent agencies, at times, lack the resources and bandwidth of their big-brand counterparts. But thanks to AI, these creative agencies can streamline workflows more than ever, freeing up employees to work on other creative and strategic initiatives.
By leveraging AI-driven tools and applications, these full-service agencies can automate routine tasks such as data analysis, content generation, and customer relationship management. This not only accelerates project timelines but also ensures accuracy and consistency. For independent ad agencies, AI represents an opportunity to overcome resource constraints, enhance productivity, and streamline operations.
Optimizing Ad Campaigns AI Advertising
In an era dominated by data-driven decision-making, independent ad agencies are leveraging AI to revolutionize how ad campaigns are planned and executed. By harnessing AI's predictive analytics and real-time optimization capabilities, these agencies can craft more targeted, efficient, and impactful campaigns.
From dynamically reallocating budgets to predicting consumer behavior, AI enables nimble independent agencies to stay ahead of the curve, delivering unparalleled value to advertisers and ensuring optimal returns on investment.
Horizon Media's e-commerce division, Night Market, introduced a retail media AI tool, Neon, to enhance ad investments across retail networks like Amazon, Walmart, and beyond. Neon dynamically reallocates funds during campaigns based on predictions, potentially boosting advertisers' revenue by 20% or more, according to Randy Browning, the president of Night Market.
Night Market utilizes historical data, client sales, and retailer-reported data to forecast optimal investment and improve ROI through real-time "micro-optimizations." It also boasts Hershey Co. as an early adopter (and endorser). While Horizon Media is known for its work with CPG brands, Night Market has piqued interest among non-CPG clients as well.
Personalization At Scale
Many advertising agencies are capitalizing on AI to craft personalized marketing experiences on a grand scale. By employing intelligent algorithms, agencies can uncover patterns in consumer behavior, such as product preferences, prime purchasing times, and preferred communication channels.
By adeptly utilizing AI, agencies can strategically zero in on specific audience segments identified by factors such as anticipated lifetime value. They can then develop tailored content replete with dynamic product recommendations catered precisely to these groups. Furthermore, AI helps analyze data to discern insights regarding the optimal timing for campaign launches, the perfect audience, and the most captivating content. With contextual AI, consumers are targeted based on their real-time interests, ensuring ads align perfectly with the content they are currently consuming.
AI remains an essential instrument for probing customer data and behavior to elevate personalized marketing. By harnessing AI algorithms, marketers can craft experiences that are meticulously fine-tuned to meet the unique needs and preferences of each consumer. These newfound capabilities empower independent ad agencies to boost user engagement and loyalty more effectively and fine-tune communications to deeply resonate with those consumers poised to derive the most value.
The Future of Independent Ad Agencies and AI
The rise of AI presents a unique opportunity for independent agencies to further solidify their market position. By integrating AI tools into their workflow, these agencies can enhance their entrepreneurial spirit, remaining agile while delivering data-driven, highly personalized campaigns. The ability to analyze trends, optimize campaigns in real-time, and automate workflows gives them a significant edge over holding company agencies.
As AI technology continues to evolve, expect creative agencies to develop even more innovative solutions to enhance campaign performance and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns with greater precision. This evolution will allow independent ad agencies to continue thriving in a competitive landscape, proving that size is no longer the sole determinant of success in the advertising industry.
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One of the most sought-after and viewed global sporting events, The Olympics, is back with its much-awaited 33rd edition this year. The quadrennial international multi-sport event is scheduled to take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024 in France. Paris will play host for the 2024 Summer Olympics, also known as Paris 2024.
With the games right around the corner, what’s buzzing this time of the year? What piqued the interest of the masses and how’s the trend growing; Seedtag Lab has got you the inside scoop with the exclusive Seedtag Olympic Games 2024 Insights.
For this survey, we leveraged our AI contextual technology, Liz, and looked through our worldwide publisher network to unearth valuable contextual insights.
The top category comes as no surprise - With over +700K articles and impressions, sports articles are the main category of articles related to the Olympic games. Racquet sports ~175K impressions, soccer ~160K, basketball ~40K, and cycling ~30K are the subcategories that stand out with particularly high-interest volumes.
Beyond sports, categories garnering interest include:
- Events & Attractions with a focus on celebrities, actors, and movies.
- Travel, particularly tourist destinations, and activities.
- Environment with an emphasis on animals and their natural habitats.
These categories have 50K impressions and less than 70K articles.
Who are the Olympic Games Audiences?
The Olympics is a massive advertising opportunity and brands are going all out to analyze areas of interest, audiences, and keywords. With the power of Liz and Seedtag Lab, we have arrived at Olympics game-based targeting strategies brands must leverage to get their money's worth.
- The Gambler
With a whopping 13.8M monthly impressions, gamblers love to tune in and gamify their experience of the sport by becoming a part of the action. Fantasy Footballers and The Bet Takers are key groups.
Keywords: Fantasy Football, Fantasy Premier League, online casino, Sportsbook, payout, and gambling.
- The Gamer and The Event Enjoyer
At 8.8M monthly impressions each, these are the next two groups. The gamers are interested in everything from the pitch to their controllers while the enjoyers are individuals who most likely live in and around the area of the event and enjoy the events of the Olympics.
The gamer group includes EA Sports Gamers and All-Around Gamers while the enjoyers are Urban Explorers and Culinary Enthusiasts and Entertainment Enthusiasts.
Gamer keywords: FIFA 23, Ultimate Team, EA Sports, FIFA Ultimate, Far Cry, PS5, Pokemon, Minecraft, Wii, and Nintendo Switch.
Enjoyer keywords: Best bars, restaurants, must-see places, markets, cultural places, music, entertainment, events, pop culture, streaming, social networking.
- The Family-oriented Spectator
This group garners 2.6M monthly impressions and includes key groups like Sports Enthusiasts and Family-Centric Gift Givers. These individuals enjoy family-friendly activities and events and are likely to watch the Olympics with their children, introducing them to different sports and cultures.
Keywords: Olympic qualification, games qualification, participation, winners, children's pleasure, children's gifts, toys, games, creative leisure, and vacations.
How can you attract and engage with the audiences interested in the Olympic Games?
The interest phase during the Olympics can be categorized into three parts: pre-, during, and post-Olympics. You can capture attention and engage viewers with Seedtag’s enriched creative formats:
- Pre-Olympics: Leverage our engagement focus configurations to start conversations with your desired audience.
- During the Olympics: Strengthen your positioning with creatives that update according to the time of day or the events lined up.
- Post-Olympics: Stand out and celebrate with the winners and key personalities on the Paris 2024 podiums.
With the exclusive configurations developed in the Seedtag studio combined with methodical positioning at the heart of the event, brands can create a memorable advertising campaign that strikes a chord with the desired audience, engages them, and delivers an impressive brand experience.
Games wide open. Level up your ad game with Seedtag this Olympics season. Capture 2.5x attention.
Want to learn more about the top audience groups and keywords? Get your hands on our latest report!
In the dynamic world of advertising, innovation and strategic growth are essential to maintaining a competitive edge. Seedtag has made a bold move to conquer the CTV landscape by acquiring Beachfront, a premier sell-side ad platform built for Connected TV (CTV) with proprietary technology offering direct premium supply.
This acquisition comes as no surprise, as it aligns seamlessly with Seedtag’s recent launch of Contextual TV, a groundbreaking solution that harnesses AI-based network dynamics, rich insights, and bespoke creative strategies to elevate CTV advertising.
According to eMarketer, CTV ad spend is projected to exceed $30 billion in 2024, marking a 22.4% increase from 2023. This growth provides the ideal backdrop for Seedtag to advance its mission of delivering contextual advertising solutions and becoming the ultimate omnichannel partner for brands and publishers.
By integrating Beachfront’s cutting-edge technology and expertise in CTV advertising into our leading contextual solutions, powered by our contextual AI Liz, Seedtag is ready to deliver even more relevant and engaging campaigns to audiences as they enjoy their favorite content while connecting with the brands they love.
Revolutionizing CTV advertising - How we do it
- Contextual Targeting + Premium CTV: Seedtag industry-leading contextual targeting paired with Beachfront's direct CTV inventory enables advertisers to reach highly relevant audiences with laser precision - a match made in heaven!
- Expanded CTV inventory: Beachfront’s capabilities and technology provide a broader range of premium CTV placements, ensuring ads reach the right viewers at the right time across an extensive network of streaming platforms.
- Privacy-first advertising that delivers: In the cookieless future, user privacy is paramount. Seedtag and Beachfront's combined expertise will unlock impactful advertising that puts user privacy regulations first.
- Deeper audience Insights: A holistic view of target audiences, no crystal ball needed. This integration allows for more effective campaign planning and optimization across all screens where content is consumed.
“With a decade of experience maximizing campaign effectiveness on the open web by leveraging contextual AI, Seedtag is now well-equipped to help brands, agencies and publishers navigate the challenges of CTV advertising,” said Jorge Poyatos, Co-CEO of Seedtag. “With the acquisition of Beachfront, we will further enrich our unique Contextual TV solution by incorporating a native platform into our stack, adding additional signals to our AI, and expanding our publisher partnerships. This move aligns perfectly with our mission to create the most effective advertising technology for a privacy first world, now also available on CTV.”
The teams at Seedtag and Beachfront are already collaborating to ensure a smooth integration of their technologies, promising a seamless experience for their partners. This strategic acquisition marks a significant milestone in Seedtag’s journey to build the future of contextual advertising through technology and deliver unmatched value to advertisers in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Chris Maccaro, CEO of Beachfront, shared his enthusiasm: “In recent years, the CTV advertising ecosystem has undergone significant growth and transformation. Beachfront has proudly served at the forefront of this industry-wide change, helping premium CTV media sellers drive monetization and deliver exceptional viewer experiences. With Seedtag’s unique solutions, global footprint, and scaled demand partnerships, we are excited to advance our services and creative value for our CTV publisher partners.”
Brian Danzis, President North America at Seedtag, added: “As we have done on the open web, Seedtag is committed to bringing unique, innovative solutions to contextualizing CTV programming. The acquisition of Beachfront will accelerate these efforts by combining access to direct premium supply with our proprietary approach to creating privacy-first audiences, optimizing creative and placements, and delivering insightful, action-oriented reporting and measurement.”
With privacy concerns on the rise and consumers demanding more relevant and engaging digital experiences, it’s crucial for brands to adapt their advertising strategies. Seedtag’s acquisition of Beachfront is a testament to its commitment to innovation and excellence, ensuring that advertisers can thrive in the privacy-first era while delivering exceptional results.
Are your ad campaigns keeping pace with these evolving trends? Discover how Seedtag’s enhanced contextual advertising solutions can help you stay ahead of the competition and connect with your audience like never before. Contact us today to learn more.
Connected TV, or CTV, no longer requires an introduction. The digital era has enabled hyper-connectivity and access to the internet which made information readily accessible anytime, anywhere. With CTV, the Internet was brought to the world of television, and any television set that can connect to the Internet can now stream video content, welcome to the future of Connected TV.
CTV has become increasingly popular as it offers a wider range of content than traditional television, and viewers can watch content of their choice, whenever they want.
This evolving landscape presents opportunities for advertisers to enhance the ad experience through interactive ads and advanced targeting capabilities.
On-demand viewing, flexibility, and access to a vast library of content make CTV the favored choice among viewers. These numbers will only continue to grow as more people switch to streaming services and internet-connected devices. The seismic shift in audience base has revolutionized advertising by paving the way for hyper-targeted CTV advertising with enhanced audience targeting capabilities and precise targeting methods.
What is Connected TV advertising?
CTV advertising has overcome the limitations of traditional TV ads where all ads are broadcast to a general audience. It focuses on personalized ads and relevant targeting based on audience interests and viewing habits. This interest-based targeting approach increases engagement and potentially boosts conversion rates for advertisers.
CTV advertising allows viewers to see ads that are relevant to them and helps measure campaign effectiveness, beating the limited tracking capabilities of traditional TV advertising. Access to key metrics like impressions, completion rates, and attribution of ad exposure to website visits or in-store purchases enables better measurement, campaign optimization, and ROI on CTV ad spend.
Navigating CTV advertising
A new channel that advertisers are actively tapping into, CTV advertising presents a massive opportunity for advertisers to effectively capture and engage with their target audience at the right time. However, similar to other channels of advertising, CTV advertising also has its limitations. Advertisers need to be mindful of poor inventory, quality concerns, ad fraud, and limited campaign measurement.
Contextual advertising has been garnering a lot of traction ever since the cookie phase-out announcement. Contextual targeting practices are emerging as a preferred solution among advertisers because of its hyper-personalization capabilities and the potential to measure campaign effectiveness through relevant and accurate metrics.
Contextual-connected TV advertising is bringing the magic of contextual targeting to CTV, allowing advertisers to target viewers based on the content they are currently watching. Contextual CTV targeting goes beyond generic demographics or browsing history and dives into the details of a viewer’s current channel, show, or genre. To determine what genres and programs work best for them, advertisers leverage information like descriptions, keywords, and genre classifications.
Post-analysis, the ads are aligned with the content being watched, thus improving the chances of ads appealing to the audience as they find them relevant and engaging. By analyzing the specifics, Contextual CTV goes beyond broad genre targeting and focuses on analyzing specific themes, topics, and emotions of programs to ensure a good fit for the ad. This evolving landscape of advertising is reshaping how brands connect with audiences through connected TV advertising.
Seedtag Contextual TV
We’ve been closely observing market trends and decided to bring our Open Web expertise to the CTV landscape. For 10+ years, we have been partnering with businesses and helping them connect with their audiences using technology we developed in-house for user understanding and targeting.
At Seedtag, we analyzed the CTV advertising space and uncovered the limitations around targeting precision. We aimed to empower advertisers to overcome the most traditional challenges:
- Targeting: Going beyond generic categories and genres with precise targeting capabilities.
- Reporting - Accessing valuable attention metrics and gauging the effectiveness of campaigns.
- Ad creatives - Creating ads that capture attention through an objective-led creative strategy .
Our objective was to explore how we could transfer all the possibilities and learnings from the open web campaigns to CTV, and we mapped topics between the two ecosystems. With Contextual TV, we are identifying audiences in the open web and bringing the benefits and granularity that we offer to CTV advertising through programmatic advertising:
- Comprehensive reporting to truly measure success.
- Engaging creatives that get attention.
- Targeting beyond genres.
- Maximize viewer attention.
How to manage the future of Connected TV
With Contextual TV by Seedtag, we are taking the learnings from our open web analysis and transferring that knowledge to find users in the CTV space. This allows more precision as we go beyond the genres and limitations of traditional CTV targeting methods.
Leverage our unmatched targeting capabilities, powered by the data extracted from the open web, to discover untapped opportunities and engage with the right audience at the right time, with the right message. These campaigns can reach a more targeted audience base and improve overall engagement. With the rise of smart TVs, advertisers must stay ahead by leveraging innovative solutions that enhance the ad experience.
Want to learn more about CTV and our exclusive contextual approach to CTV? Register to Seedtag Academy and become an expert on all things CTV!
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At this point, Google’s intentions to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome are no surprise to anyone. But how has this transition actually played out, and why does the deadline keep getting extended? Google Q1 2024 report, published by The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Google, shared the latest update on the timeline for the phase-out of third-party cookies on Chrome. In the report, Google recognized ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators, and developers, and said they will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. Google also said that the CMA must have sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.
Citing these reasons, Google revealed that they will not be able to complete the phase-out of third-party cookies during the second half of Q4. However, the news doesn’t come as a complete surprise to those who have been following the cookie phase-out space.
Google Chrome third-party cookie depreciation: A timeline
As a part of its broader initiative to improve user privacy and create a more sustainable web ecosystem, Google first announced its intention to deprecate third-party cookies in January 2020.
- After announcing its intention to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome, Google worked with the web community and engaged with various industry stakeholders to gather feedback, as part of a larger initiative called the Privacy Sandbox, and explore alternative solutions to third-party cookies.
- The Privacy Sandbox initiative introduced a set of proposals for privacy-preserving advertising and measurement solutions.
- Google provided an update on the Privacy Sandbox, outlining potential solutions like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) for interest-based advertising while preserving user privacy.
- From the original deadline of 2020, Google shifted the phase-out to mid-2023.
- However, Google acknowledged the need for more testing and refinement of Privacy Sandbox APIs before complete removal, pushing back the date again to 2024.
- In late 2023, the testing phase began, and in early 2024, third-party cookies were restricted for 1% of Chrome users. Later that year, Google further expanded the test group to 20% of Chrome users.
- In April 2024, Google announced another delay, pushing back the full phase-out to early 2025, citing ongoing discussions with regulators and the need for further testing.
As it stands today, third-party cookies remain restricted for a portion of Chrome users as testing continues. However, the official phase-out is expected to be completed in early 2025.
You can view the latest update report on the implementation of Google’s Privacy Sandbox here.
The future of advertising
While Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies will not be complete in 2024; it is merely a delay but imminent. Brands and agencies have already begun opting out of legacy, audience-based targeting practices and embracing privacy-compliant and effective alternatives like contextual advertising.
Leading global brands are using this time to test newer alternatives, better understand them, quantify the value created by these solutions, and how they can be incorporated into targeting playbooks to ensure a smooth transition once cookies inevitably disappear.
Contextual advertising is quickly emerging as one of the most sought-after alternatives to cookie-based targeting practices as it offers a privacy-compliant and non-intrusive way to reach the desired target audience. Powered by next-gen tech like AI, ML, and NLP, contextual advertising analyzes both the written and visual content of a web page, enabling brands to deliver ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences without the use of cookies.
Powered by Liz, our pioneering AI technology, we at Seedtag offer future-proof, thoroughly tested contextual targeting solutions that find and engage with nuanced audiences and capture their attention by aligning with their current line of interest. Popular brands like KIA, Pedigree, LG, and Garnier have partnered with us to implement a superior AI-powered contextual advertising strategy to achieve higher accuracy and better ROI.
The results?
- KIA saw a 43% increase in brand awareness for contextual ads versus 18% for cookie-based ads
- Pedigree noticed a 61% increase in messaging association
- LG observed a 53% uplift in CTR
Want to learn more about our contextual advertising solutions?
For many years, brands were able to leverage the benefits of third-party cookies to help them identify consumer behavior and target them online with ads. Consumers were not particularly pleased with this approach and considered it an intrusion of privacy. This focus on data privacy became especially relevant in 2020 as online activity sky-rocketed, with most people staying home.
Companies like Apple have already moved to phase out third-party cookies, with Google looking to complete the same by 2024. With acts like GDPR and CCPA put in place by governments, the death of third-party cookies and other means to identify online behavior was welcomed by consumers; advertisers did not share the same enthusiasm.
The marketing and advertising industry has again looked to technology to solve the same challenges technology has created.
Contextual advertising emerged as one of the relatively easy options for companies to adopt and ensure they could still target consumers with some degree of certainty. It showed more significant benefits in targeting, increased sales, improved adherence to brand safety and suitability, and much more.
Reports estimate that the global market for contextual advertising will reach a size of US$335.1 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 13.3% over the analysis period.
Contextual advertising is all about analyzing the web page's content and context to determine whether an advertisement is relevant and suitable to that page. The tools in the market today allow brands to study a variety of parameters including keywords, page type,media channel, positive or negative connotations and more, without the use of third-party cookies.
Brands are able to optimize ad positions and deliver relevant and engaging communications with the target audience. The goal of contextual advertising is to make the ads as relevant as possible to the user to increase their chances of clicking on the ad. For example, someone reading a webpage on golf is more likely to buy golfing equipment and related apparel than possibly place an order for fast food.
Contextual advertising is continuously being refined by technologies like AI, machine learning, natural language processing and more. For the longest time, AI was confined to the realms of science fiction, books and movies. However, the science fiction of yesterday has become the reality of today. The advertising world got its first taste of the power of AI when Lexus released an advertisement entirely scripted by AI. By studying over a decade of award-winning car advertisements, Watson from IBM identified the winning elements and put them together in a single ad.
With AI, brands are able to gain actionable insights with regard to context behind digital content beyond just keywords and user behavior. AI is helping brands determine suitability of an ad in correlation to a webpage with greater accuracy, determine optimal spots for ad placement to yield higher returns on ad spend, enhance targeting through real-time analytics, deliver more relevant and personalized experiences to readers and much more.
Marketers and advertisers prefer to leverage AI to palace contextual ads than third-party cookies for various reasons. Some of the top reasons include the following –
- Adherence to data privacy - Third-party cookies have been under scrutiny for their potential impact on consumer privacy. Cookieless advertising methods, such as AI-powered contextual advertising, do not rely on personal data from users to target ads. AI can analyze data from first-party sources to create a complete picture of the user. This includes demographics, first-party customer data, interests, and behavior, which can be used to target ads more accurately.
- Improved targeting – AI algorithms can analyze and understand the context of a webpage or app beyond just text and keywords. These algorithms can optimize ad campaigns by adjusting targeting by studying performance metrics such as click-through and conversion rates to know what ads work in the page's context. AI-based NLP is even able to understand the intent behind a search query, allowing for more accurate ad targeting. AI is also helping brands locate the optimal spots for ad placements so as to ensure maximum return on advertising investments
- Enhanced personalization - Consumers today find most digital ads to be disruptive to their online experience. AI is helping address this challenge by not only finding the best spot to place the ad, but deliver the ability to blend ads into images or video more seamlessly into the larger webpage content, that is more attractive and interesting to readers and enabling a higher quality experience and subsequently returns
- Increased brand safety and suitability – AI algorithms can also identify negative articles, fake news, fraudulent articles, etc., and avoid placing content there to enhance favorability with audiences and avoid financial losses. When going beyond browsing data, AI allows brands to ensure that users see ads in the proper context. AI can also detect and prevent fraud, such as bots clicking on ads, making the advertising ecosystem more secure.
The market spending for AI in marketing is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. According to a report by Markets and Markets, the global market size of AI in marketing is expected to reach USD 40.09 billion by 2025. AI constantly improves, learns, and adapts as needed to make better decisions. This will allow brands to future-proof their targeting efforts and advertising spending as the market evolves. Cookie-less advertising is the future of digital advertising, and AI is set to usher in a new era of contextual advertising. If you are yet to adopt contextual advertising and technologies like AI to improve the return on your marketing investments, contact us at Seedtag today.
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The privacy era will reshape the ad tech landscape, and contextual advertising is set to emerge as a lynchpin for brands looking to adopt effective, privacy-first ad strategies.
According to research, the global digital advertising market is projected to reach 562 billion USD by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 13.8%.
With the progressive loss of effectiveness of third-party cookies and the introduction of data privacy laws, brands must explore privacy-first, future-proof alternatives. Contextual advertising is emerging as a frontrunner as it bridges the gap between privacy and targeting. The traditional practice of relying on personal information will not make the cut going forward.
How Contextual Advertising is Shaping the Future of Advertising
The shift in focus: Quality over Quantity
For the longest time, both advertisers and publishers have relied on data collected through profiling to attract audiences and make ad-buying decisions. The focus has always been on bringing in a large number of general audiences and never on what truly interests them. These traditional methods solely rely on the intrusive collection of personal data not backed by any other privacy-first approach.
This method of automated or programmatic ad buying has had a significant impact on the quality of content online. Programmatic advertising focuses on reaching a broad audience, thus incentivizing publishers to prioritize the volume game and diluting the emphasis on catering to specific audience interests.
But with the spotlight on data privacy laws and the progressive loss of reach of third-party cookies, the emphasis is back on content quality over engaging with generic audience pools. Contextual advertising offers a privacy-compliant alternative to display ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences beyond just using cookies.
The rise of contextual advertising
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have already made their way into various walks of life, and the advertising industry is no exception. AI-powered contextual advertising has the ability to analyze the written and visual content on a web page and display relevant ads that reach the desired targeted audience.
With rising privacy concerns and the progressive loss of reach of third-party cookies, contextual advertising is poised for significant growth in the coming years. It offers a more privacy-compliant and relevant way to target consumers compared to traditional methods by providing a solution that balances user privacy with effective targeting.
The Role of AI in Contextual Advertising
AI and machine learning are transforming the way digital ads are placed in the advertising industry. By analyzing consumer behavior and the content of web pages in real time, AI-driven ad campaigns ensure that ads are displayed in the most relevant ad space. Evolving at a rapid pace, and brands must adapt to the new reality where third-party data is no longer the gold standard. This method not only increases engagement but also prevents ads from being placed near inappropriate content, ensuring brand safety.
By leveraging first-party data and AI-powered contextual advertising, advertisers can make data-driven decisions without compromising consumer privacy. This privacy-first approach aligns with data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA, ensuring brands remain compliant while still delivering highly relevant online ads.
A Privacy-First Future of Advertising
Privacy-first marketing strategies will shape the future of advertising as consumers demand more control over their data. As regulations tighten and consumers become more aware of their personal data, businesses that adopt contextual advertising will stay ahead in the digital advertising landscape. Those who fail to embrace it, risks falling behind as the industry shifts towards a more secure, transparent, and ethical future.
Additionally, linear TV is losing its dominance to Connected TV (CTV) and digital platforms, making programmatic advertising and contextual targeting the best strategies for brands looking to maximize ad spending while adhering to data privacy laws. Building niche audience segments, leveraging first-party data, and exploring new-age strategies like CTV advertising are a few among the myriad opportunities contextual advertising offers.
Contextual advertising is not just an alternative to cookie-based tracking; it is the foundation of the future of advertising. By focusing on real-time analysis, AI-powered targeting, and privacy-first approaches, brands can build trust and loyalty with their audiences. Interested to learn more about how you can benefit from contextual advertising?
As the number of consumers moving online grows at a meteoric pace, brands today are doubling down on the effort spent to understand and control what kind of online content their ads run along with. Growing consumer focus on brand reputation and data privacy have every brand treating ad placement with kid gloves.
Until 2019, brands defined their own rules and strategies of what was considered appropriate in the online space. It was in 2019 that the focus on brand safety and brand suitability saw a concrete direction with GARM.
For the uninitiated, GARM stands for the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. It is an industry-led initiative founded in 2019 that aims to improve the safety and sustainability of digital advertising, reduce harmful content online, and promote integrity and accountability in the digital media ecosystem.
Since the standard procedures and guidelines have been defined by representatives of agencies, advertisers, media platforms, and industry bodies, GARM is widely regarded as having set the brand safety and suitability standard for all to follow.
Despite the standards being defined, a report featured in The Guardian in 2020 found that over 100 big brands like Samsung, Decathlon, Audi, L'oreal were unknowingly running their advertisements on YouTube videos on the site that were actively promoting climate misinformation. These incidents highlighted the need for greater transparency and responsibility in digital advertising practices and underscored the importance of initiatives like GARM.
Brands can demonstrate their commitment to responsible advertising practices by aligning with the practice set forth by GARM in the following manner –
- Understand the GARM Framework - A comprehensive grasp of the brand safety floor and suitability framework enables organizations to identify hazardous content and convey an incorrect message about brand values, which can significantly affect consumer perception. Without knowing the tools that one is working with, building a successful concrete campaign would be improbable.
- Audit existing brand campaigns and partners – Once you know what the playing field looks like, you must audit your brand's advertising practices and make changes as necessary to ensure compliance with GARM standards. This is not limited to just the company that owns the brand itself but needs to extend into the larger ecosystem to ensure partners, including media platforms and agencies, and everyone responsible for developing and implementing brand campaigns understands and implements the standards thoroughly. For example, in 2020, Unilever announced that it would stop advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in the United States until at least the end of the year, citing concerns over hate speech and divisive content on the platforms.
- Leverage relevant tools and technologies to monitor the brand: Leverage available technologies and tools, such as brand safety verification services, to monitor where your ads are being placed and ensure that they do not appear next to harmful content. With the growing focus on contextual advertising, brands can leverage advanced tools like AI to determine brand suitability and contextual fit. Brands like P&G and Nestle are already experimenting with AI in market analysis and product development, analyzing ad placements in real-time and ensuring that ads are not appearing next to inappropriate content.
- Given the pace of change in the digital advertising landscape, the renewed interest in contextual advertising, and the bright spotlight focused on brand suitability, it is essential for brands to continuously engage with the GARM community and work with partners who understand how brands can thrive in the digital space.
We at Seedtag understand the digital advertising landscape and possess the relevant technical knowledge to ensure that brands can grow in today's world. Do write to us to know how we can audit and help your brand stay safe by adopting the latest GARM standards.
The cord-cutting era is here! We’re officially in the age where streaming services have changed the course of television and how content is delivered worldwide. As a result, the shift from traditional TV (Linear TV) to Connected TV (CTV) is also impacting the landscape of online ads, making them more dynamic, interactive, and personalized for viewers.
According to a survey, 2023 was the first year non-pay TV households stood at 68.7 million vs. traditional cable at 62.8 million, outnumbering cable connections for the first time in the United States. Broadcast and cable fell below 50% of all TV usage, and Statista revealed that in 2023, 88% of U.S. households owned at least one internet-connected TV device. The number of CTV users totalled more than 110 million among Gen Z and Millennials.
What is CTV? Laying the Foundations for CTV advertising
Connected TV refers to the device that delivers streaming content, a rapidly growing market with increasing popularity. The past years have seen a growing cord-cutting trend, as people are canceling traditional cable and switching to streaming services. Connected TVs have become the most sought-after and popular choice among the masses as they offer a vast library of content beyond traditional channels, the freedom to browse in one's own time, and choose content that aligns with one’s interests.
Connected TVs give users on-demand access to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max which stream movies, TV shows, documentaries, and even live programs. Flexibility, content diversity, convenience, and overall experience are among the top reasons why people increasingly turn to Connected TV.
The change in trend and massive viewership have naturally garnered the attention of advertisers too. Brands want to display their ads where their audiences are, and today, CTV advertising has gained a top spot. CTV advertising allows brands to reach this growing audience base by offering far superior audience targeting capabilities, higher engagement rates, deeper insights, and measurable results.
CTV advertising is transforming the digital ad landscape, allowing brands to reach highly engaged audiences with more precise targeting. Unlike traditional display ads, CTV ads offer immersive, full-screen experiences that drive higher engagement and brand recall.
Advertising tips: How to choose the right CTV partner for your brand
A strong CTV partner should offer advanced ad tech solutions, including programmatic ad buying, to optimize placements and maximize reach. This ensures advertisers can automate their media buying processes efficiently while targeting the right audiences at the right time.
Inventory quality
Advertisers need to be mindful of the quality of the inventory and its relevance to their brand and audience. Brands need to target their audience effectively and avoid irrelevant placements. Rather than choosing any CTV partner based on demographics or audience types, the focus should be contextual relevance. Placing ads that align with the content audiences are engaging which ensures better engagement.
Brands must also know what type of content will accompany the CTV ads. While CTV ads can be placed across various platforms, the inventory must comprise premium and professionally produced content to attract the right audience and capture their attention. The right CTV partner helps advertisers place ads alongside content the audience trusts, thus going beyond just engagement, elevating brand credibility, and increasing brand loyalty.
Brand safety and brand suitability
As advertisers unlock CTV inventory, it is important to ensure ad messaging and placement are optimal. Ads appearing alongside content that is offensive or harmful can have a negative impact on a brand's reputation. Advertisers must pick CTV partners who provide tried and tested brand safety expertise and contextual relevance to suit the brand’s values, messaging, and positioning.
Many CTV partners leverage AI in advertising, using AI-powered tools and AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze metadata and ensure brand safety. They analyze metadata like the descriptions of CTV videos and titles to determine safety and relevance. It’s crucial to go beyond just metadata and analyze the full content of a video to assess safety and suitability. Brands must gain a complete understanding of a video’s suitability before finalizing a campaign or any ad placement.
This approach goes beyond simple keyword scanning, allowing advertisers to understand the full context of video content and make informed decisions on ad placements."
Reporting capabilities
Like any advertising campaign, understanding performance in-depth for attribution measurement is critical for advertisers. Beyond real-time metrics, brands can analyze search results to evaluate audience interest after exposure to CTV ads. The effectiveness of CTV campaigns relies on analyzing party data and other data collected from audience interactions to better understand consumer behavior.
By tracking how often users search for a brand or product after seeing an ad, advertisers can gain deeper insights into brand recall and effectiveness. When picking a CTV partner, brands must analyze what metrics will be accessible to measure the impact of CTV ads. Transparency of campaign performance and reporting is critical to evaluate ROI.
How did the target audience engage with the brand after viewing an ad, what was the viewer intent and how did the ad impact this journey, what action did they take after viewing the ad, etc. are key metrics that advertisers must have access to. Brands must ensure real-time reporting and insights into metrics like impressions, reach, completion rates, and frequency for transparency.
Enhancing CTV Campaigns with Effective Advertising Tips
To maximize the effectiveness of CTV advertising, brands should adopt advertising tips that enhance their overall campaign strategy. Incorporating eye-catching creatives ensures that ads capture audience attention and leave a lasting impression. Additionally, brands should integrate email marketing strategies such as email newsletters to complement CTV ad campaigns and maintain ongoing engagement with their audience.
Using programmatic ad buying can also improve efficiency by automating ad placements, ensuring that brands reach the right audience at the right time. By leveraging AI-driven insights, advertisers can fine-tune their CTV advertising efforts and optimize results.
Introducing Contextual TV by Seedtag
Seedtag’s latest offering for the Connected TV ecosystem, Contextual TV aims to extend our contextual expertise to enable brands to activate strong CTV campaigns with precise targeting capabilities that go beyond the standard targeting practices.
CTV has now become one of the most effective ways to target audiences, especially the new generations like the Millenials and Gen Z, who have cut the cord. For over a decade, we at Seedtag have been empowering brands to effectively connect with their audiences using our unmatched technology that provides superior targeting capabilities and user understanding.
With Contextual TV, we’re not just adapting to trends, but actively helping to shape the future of advertising in the CTV space. Brands can now leverage open web benefits for the big screen, eliminating today’s limitations of targeting precision and reporting in the CTV advertising landscape.
- Combining the Open Web with Connected TV empowers brands to explore, uncover untapped opportunities, and engage with the right audience at the right time with the right message.
- Comprehensive reporting options to ensure you truly understand the effectiveness of your campaigns.
- Engaging creatives that garner audience attention.
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Trust, reputation, review, and recommendations play a critical role among consumers today, during any decision-making process. Customers want to purchase from a reputed brand. Thus, brands invest significant budget and workforce to ensure their image and reputation are built and safeguarded at all times.
The public's overall perception of a brand is forged over a period based on the brand’s values, messaging, reviews, and the customer’s interactions and experiences with the brand. The brand image focuses on the messages a business intends to convey through marketing, design, and communication efforts. Brand reputation reflects trustworthiness, ethics, reliability, the quality of their products or services, and the high-quality advertising content they create and place.
Advertising plays a key role in making or breaking a brand’s image and reputation: The messaging and creatives floated by brands through their ads are a direct reflection of their ideas and values. So, the ads a brand creates and where it chooses to place them have a crucial impact on consumer perception. Effective ad campaigns should take into consideration brand safety, ensuring that the messaging aligns with the company’s values and avoids harmful contexts.
For example, a children's toy company running ads on a website or article that features explicit language or violent content can negatively impact how they are perceived. Similarly, a brand that sells vitamins or fitness products placing ads on a platform that promotes unhealthy lifestyle choices and dangerous behaviors such as extreme dieting or risky physical activities, it goes against its fundamental values.
Brand safety: The need of the hour
Today, there is an ever-increasing need to be mindful of the advertising content created and where they are showcased, making way for the implementation of brand safety and suitability measures. These advertising practices aim to shield a brand's image and reputation from being negatively impacted by online advertising placements.
Whether it is social media or the web universe, ad placement plays a critical role in ensuring brands avoid content that may harm their image, maintain trust with consumers, and build their reputation. To protect your brand’s image, it is essential to ensure that your ads do not appear in inappropriate contexts or next to harmful content. So, the focus lies in making sure brand ads do not show up next to content that could be considered harmful or inappropriate.
Factors pose a threat to brand safety in today’s digital landscape
- Placing ads in inappropriate or controversial contexts using exclusion lists, etc.
- Ad placement alongside unrelated or conflicting content.
- Brand presence besides fake news or misinformation, preventing ads from showing alongside unrelated or harmful content.
- Losing precious advertising dollars to ad fraud on dubious websites set up to generate false clicks.
- Data breaches or data privacy violations of precious consumer information.
The deprecation of third-party cookies has already put contextual advertising as a front runner in the digital landscape. However, contextual AI’s ability to ensure the highest levels of brand safety and suitability is another reason that makes contextual ads an ideal alternative to cookie-based advertising practices. Contextual advertising and AI advertising enable a brand to target relevant audiences while ensuring the ads align with its values, thus protecting its reputation.
The spotlight on brand safety and brand suitability
Contextual advertising relies on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences without the use of cookies. Contextual advertising’s Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities go a step further and have the ability to understand nuances in language and semantically interpret editorial content.
By analyzing the written and visual content of a page, contextual advertising offers brands an environment where the values and ideas seamlessly fit with their image and values, thus ensuring the highest levels of brand safety. Additionally, brand suitability helps bridge the divide between risk and opportunity and provides context-based protections.
The merge of brand safety and suitability
It helps brands elevate their targeting strategy:
- Shields your brand image and reputation from any negative impact
- Prevents your ads from appearing alongside harmful or inappropriate content
- Aligns ad placement with content that reflects brand identity and values .
- Places ads where they resonate with the right audience.
What can we expect of the future of brand safety and suitability
With brand safety and suitability, brands can navigate tricky spaces where there is a risk of exposure to controversial and harmful content. For instance, a website that focuses on financial news might cover some topics that brands might deem unsafe. However, websites that cover topics like finance or the stock market might be a great bet for a luxury watch brand. Therefore, strategic ad placement plays an important role in maximizing opportunity and impact.
As we venture into the future of digital marketing, the combination of brand safety and suitability emerges as a guiding light for brands seeking to safeguard their reputation while maximizing their reach. By embracing contextual advertising and its contextual AI capabilities, brands can confidently navigate the complexities of online advertising, secure in the knowledge that their message is not just heard, but heard in the right place, at the right time, by the right audience.
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Connected TV or CTV advertising is swiftly becoming a core advertising strategy as internet-connected televisions take over households and the interest shifts towards content streaming platforms. Leichtman Research Group reported that 88% of US households own at least one Internet-connected TV device. The number of adults in the United States households who watch videos on a TV via a connected device daily rose from 6% in 2013 to a staggering 49% in 2023.
Audience inclination toward CTV from traditional television has shifted the spotlight to CTV advertising, making it the next big thing in the ad tech space for brands seeking to reach their target audiences. Brands need to be where their audiences are and make their presence felt. With the audience behavior shifting toward streaming platforms, understanding consumer behavior is essential for brands to adapt their advertising strategies accordingly. Likewise, dedicating a significant amount of time in their day-to-day to spend on streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Hulu; it is only obvious that brands are changing gears in their ad strategies and allocating more more advertising budgets to CTV ads.
Beyond just the viewership
While the rising viewership numbers are an important factor that is shining the light on CTV advertising, another critical aspect is brand safety. Maintaining brand reputation is imperative in today’s chaotic digital landscape where there are myriad stories, news pieces, opinions, and debates. As a more regulated and transparent medium, Connected TV offers a safer space for brands to engage with the audience in the digital age.
Brand safety refers to the practice of protecting a brand's online reputation and image by taking steps to prevent its ads from appearing alongside inappropriate or harmful content. For example, no brand would want its ads to appear next to content about hate speech or terrorism. Similarly, a fast food chain will not want ads to appear in an article about heart attacks or a travel company’s ad next to news around layoffs or economic downturns.
Tackling Ad Fraud and Viewability in the CTV Advertising Landscape
As CTV advertising continues to shape the modern advertising landscape, brands must also consider the impact of ad fraud and viewability challenges. Unlike traditional TV, where ad placements are predetermined, CTV operates in a dynamic digital environment where fraudsters exploit loopholes through practices like device spoofing and invalid traffic.
To ensure both brand safety and budget efficiency, advertisers must leverage advanced verification tools and collaborate with trusted ad tech partners. Implementing AI-driven fraud detection and adopting programmatic transparency measures will help brands safeguard their campaigns from wasted ad spend and reputational damage.
Brand safety and Connected TV (CTV)
A survey revealed that 70% of advertisers felt brand safety incidents impacted their campaigns. It also showed that 67% of brands said they believe they are taking a serious financial risk by not addressing brand safety online. 37% of brands have experienced a brand safety issue and the worldwide advertising dollars wasted due to a lack of brand safety in 2019 was estimated to be $14.8 billion.
While there is transparency in the inventory and regulations in the space, CTV advertising is still a struggle for brands and advertisers when it comes to a buying environment. They need a more in-depth understanding of the inventory and where their ads will appear. With no industry-wide protocols in place yet and a lack of transparency on what marketers are buying, the need of the hour is visibility. Brands and marketers need real-time visibility of ad placement to prevent their ads from appearing in inappropriate or harmful environments and requiere to be watchful of ad placement to prevent their ads from appearing in inappropriate or harmful environments.
A mix of reputable inventory sources and contextual relevance is a tactic many brands are opting for to overcome the brand safety issues that the sought-after CTV advertising currently poses. Analyzing and reviewing media buying at a content level can help alleviate brand safety concerns by ensuring the content is not just safe but relevant too.
With contextual advertising-backed CTV targeting, brands can address both brand safety and brand suitability. By analyzing the content and context of shows, contextual targeting empowers brands to place their ads alongside the most brand-safe and relevant content. Users are more likely to engage with an ad that aligns with the content they are currently viewing, thus driving engagement and ad recall by garnering more impactful consumer attention.
Relevant and engaging content creates a great connection with the user, increases the time users spend on an ad, and goes beyond just visibility to deliver meaningful engagement. CTV ads bolstered by contextual targeting help brands better navigate the relatively new ad space, improve ad targeting, deliver more impactful outcomes, and enhance the overall brand impression.
The Future of Brand Safety in CTV Advertising
n today’s evolving advertising landscape, winning brand safety in CTV advertising requires a multi-faceted approach that combines transparency, technology, and strategic media buying. As brands continue to shift budgets toward CTV, adopting proactive safety measures, such as contextual targeting, premium inventory selection, and third-party verification, will be key to maintaining brand integrity. By staying ahead of industry developments and investing in secure advertising practices, brands can maximize the potential of CTV advertising while ensuring their message reaches the right audience in a safe and suitable environment.
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