From reality TV to real impact, Jamie Laing has become a master of reinvention – building cultural relevance across three major media touchpoints: brand, broadcast, and podcast. In this energising fireside chat, Jamie unpacks how authenticity has been the consistent thread powering the success of his sustainable confectionery brand Candy Kittens, his bold voice on BBC Radio 1, and his candid podcasting ventures.

With tangible insights into building trust with Gen Z and millennial audiences, creating values-driven content, and scaling a brand with purpose at its core, this session offers takeaways for brands, agencies, and media owners navigating today’s attention economy.

Jamie will also reflect on his recent ultramarathon for Comic Relief and what it revealed about positive masculinity – offering a powerful counter-narrative to portrayals like Netflix’s Adolescence and showing how vulnerability can be a superpower in both storytelling and leadership.

Explore:

• Embedding authenticity in brand-building and cross-platform storytelling
• The role of values and vulnerability in reaching younger audiences
• Why positive portrayals of masculinity matter – and how media can shape them
• What cross-platform success looks like when purpose is the driver

This will be a Campaign exclusive – a rare chance to hear how one cultural entrepreneur is using influence (across three mediums) to spark conversations that matter and power positive cultural change.

As scrutiny on ad spend intensifies and the divide between marketing and finance grows, this session challenges the industry’s over-reliance on performance marketing. It explores how AI can help brands reconnect with consumers through emotionally intelligent, hyper-personalised storytelling that fits seamlessly into their digital lives.

• Rediscover the purpose of advertising: why rebalancing brand and performance is critical to long-term value and customer connection.
• Breaking down advertising silos: the importance of building seamless experiences that reflect real consumer behaviour.
• Using AI to humanise, not just optimise: discover how AI can help brands reconnect with their audiences in more meaningful, memorable ways.

CTV's potential is undeniable but are you at the forefront of the most progressive opportunities it offers? Join MiQ, alongside our partners at Arena Media and UKTV, as we unpack winning strategies to supercharge CTV performance, overcome fragmentation and achieve incremental reach and ROI. The session will explore how MiQ connected a unique, custom measurement solution with UKTV's specific business goals delivering incremental tune-in across a collection of hero shows.

Moderated by Debate Mate

• What are the real trade-offs between maximising audience engagement and safeguarding brand reputation? Are brands playing with fire? 
• Can brand safety truly survive in high-reach channels, or is it an illusion? 
• Are brands willingly sacrificing consumer trust for the sake of visibility? - What’s the long-term cost of this gamble? 
• In today’s fragmented media landscape, is it even possible to achieve both expansive reach and unwavering trust, or are we destined to choose one over the other?

*During the debate sessions, speakers are assigned opposing positions to present diverse perspectives. They aren’t necessarily advocating for their personal views or the beliefs of the brands they represent, but rather contributing to a balanced discussion that encourages deeper conversation and critical thinking. 

• In what ways are AI and automation transforming media processes, and where do they fall short?

• Are we sacrificing the human touch for efficiency? What are the implications for brand storytelling and audience connection?

• As we embrace AI-driven solutions, are we relinquishing too much control over our strategies and decisions?

• How do we navigate the ethical implications of automation in our media strategies?

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is evolving fast, and programmatic is at the heart of that transformation. In this fireside conversation, Beau Jackson, Media Editor at Campaign, sits down with Lee Cutter, VP Sales Nordics & MENA at Hivestack, to explore how programmatic DOOH is reshaping planning, targeting, and measurement in the UK and globally. From real-world success stories to future-forward trends, they’ll unpack how OOH is becoming a powerful player in omnichannel strategies and why the future of outdoor has never looked more dynamic.

With most of a digital media budget being spent on campaign execution, getting this critical stage right is essential. While significant energy goes into strategy, audience planning and creative, poor execution can undermine even the best-laid plans. In this session, Percept will share practical insight from working with brands and agencies including Vodafone and Jellyfish — offering a behind-the-scenes look at how small improvements in execution can lead to big gains in campaign performance.

At Initiative, we talk a lot about brand growth as an alchemy and an art, not a trade-off. Not brand or performance. But the powerful blend of emotional resonance, uniting brands in culture and driving commercial momentum, and seamless customer flow. It’s our mental model for growth that spans beyond the realms of just paid media, knowing a wider ecosystem can impact how a brand grows, we call this philosophy for growth Fame & Flow.

Join Rachel Coffey, Chief Strategy Officer at Initiative in conversation with Russell Jackson-Pugh, Head of Media at Deliveroo and Tim Pearson, Chief Revenue Officer at LADbible Group as they explore what it takes to create meaning and movement in a modern media ecosystem.

As marketing effectiveness continues to grow in popularity, it’s becoming increasingly challenging work out where to start, what matters most and how to scale your programme.

In this session, you’ll get some practical tips and insight into how to solve those problems with a particular focus on why MMM shouldn’t be your starting point (despite what the industry tells you!)

We are at the centre of a pandemic of misinformation, with growing rates of anxiety and depression amongst young people. Evidence shows social media is the catalyst behind many of society's biggest issues – so should the advertising industry take stock of their investment in social platforms? 

Bauer Media’s Managing Director Simon Kilby will explore how brands and media agencies can take a more conscientious approach to their media spend, to help protect the future of both the advertising industry and more importantly, wider society.

Gaming is no longer a niche. It’s the dominant force in global entertainment, eclipsing the combined scale of film and music. For brands in 2025, gaming is now a strategic imperative for relevance, reach, and resonance.

Today’s top 10 games drive more engagement than the 100 biggest influencers, demonstrating the unmatched power and scale of playtime across every audience demographic.

In this forward-looking conversation between Overwolf Ads and dentsu, we’ll explore:

Why every brand needs a gaming expert in the room

Key takeaways for an integrated gaming strategy in 2025

KPIs and media metrics to measure brand success in gaming

Case studies from category leaders like Pringles that are already setting the standard

At a time when viewing is increasingly fragmented and it’s harder to reach large audiences at once, live sport is not only retaining audiences - it’s growing fast.

In this session, you’ll hear how a deeper understanding of the evolving sports fan and their viewing habits is helping advertisers drive deeper engagement and greater impact from their ad spend.

Lexus will share how they’ve tapped into talent and connected with a new generation of sports fans through their Sky Sports Tennis partnership. Mat will share the key learnings and the impact it’s had on both their brand metrics and business performance

This session dives into how Samsung is harnessing the world’s largest set of first-party TV data—now enriched with 1st party deterministic Samsung mobile insights—to unlock the most powerful cross-device understanding to date. Discover how these layered signals can help advertisers better understand audiences, predict behaviour, and drive effectiveness. From a fully consumer-centric approach to media planning, to AI-driven optimisation tactics, we’ll explore how multi-screen intelligence is shaping the future of audience buys and campaign impact. And this is just the beginning—there’s much more to come.

This session will:

• Outline some of the challenges LGBTQIA+ people face in 2025
• Explore how LGBTQIA+ inclusion can benefit everyone and build stronger teams
• Equip you with a framework to drive LGBTQIA+ equity in your organisation
• Provide examples of workplace initiatives that are making a tangible difference
• Give you 3 actions every organisation can start doing today

• Discover actionable insights from ISBA and MediaSense’s latest 2025 research into the retail media landscape
• Learn how brands, agencies, tech vendors, media owners, and retailers can collaborate to maximise value and ROI
• Identify the key strategies needed to thrive in a sector predicted to surpass £5bn in the UK next year

• What truly qualifies as a “multidisciplinary team” in practice?
• Is conflict an inevitable part of collaboration?
• Are certain fields or voices consistently overpowering others—and how can teams balance the influence?
• Is it possible to build genuine trust and psychological safety across different skill sets, experiences, and expectations, or are they just buzzwords?

Programmatic advertising is undergoing a major shift, with innovation increasingly coming from the sell side. By moving intelligence and decisioning closer to the impression, publishers are unlocking new efficiencies and creating greater value. This evolution is not about reducing buy-side influence; it is about enhancing collaboration and driving better outcomes across the board. 

With advancements in AI, improved transparency, and access to richer datasets, advertisers are empowered to invest with greater precision, while publishers retain more control and revenue from their inventory. 

In this session, Andrew Casale, President and CEO of Index Exchange, will explore how this transformation is creating a more effective, agile, and mutually beneficial programmatic ecosystem for media owners, brands, and technology partners alike. 

Moderated by Debate Mate

• Are audiences abandoning TV for social platforms? 
• Is social media diluting the value of storytelling? 
• Are brands shifting their focus from TV to social media? 
• Can TV compete with the instant gratification of social media? 
• Will TV become extinct?
• Should brands and agencies rethink their over-reliance and over-investment in social media?

*During the debate sessions, speakers are assigned opposing positions to present diverse perspectives. They aren’t necessarily advocating for their personal views or the beliefs of the brands they represent, but rather contributing to a balanced discussion that encourages deeper conversation and critical thinking.