Ocean Outdoor and Creator by Infinitum, a division of Infinitum Group, have formed a new partnership that brings together the impact of premium digital out-of-home (DOOH) with online creator engagement to deliver integrated brand campaigns that reach combined audiences of millions. Ocean Creator offers a market-first turnkey solution for brands, pairing premium DOOH locations with carefully selected creators to produce attention-grabbing content designed for social media that will drive engagement and ultimately business results for advertisers. Ocean Creator’s launch partner is Sky with a national campaign which breaks on 5th February ahead of the Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, marking the broadcaster’s newly announced partnerships with Team GB and ParalympicsGB. Content will also appear nationally across more than 50 Ocean screens in 14 cities, with activations at Piccadilly Lights, Westfield Stratford City and Liverpool Media Wall.
Ocean Outdoor has also been awarded the sales and marketing contract to manage all existing Out of Home (OOH) advertising formats on behalf of Manchester Arndale, the UK’s biggest inner city retail centre. Ocean plans to revamp the centre with new screen formats and the latest DOOH technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Ocean Labs will also manage experiential brand activations and murals, along with a media first opportunity for large scale projections on the Arndale skyscraper.
MediaPET.ai has announced the release of version 2.0 of their platform, featuring the first chat-enabled interface for AI video content creation. The company has introduced new content creation modes for short-form movies and spokesperson videos, further expanding its comprehensive all-in-one AI video platform. With the new chat functionality, users can now interact with the interface in a manner similar to that of interacting with platforms such as ChatGPT. The chat interface is highly structured around a project and not just a video clip, walking the user through the content creation process in stages designed to provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution. The new chat interface also facilitates instructions that process edits across scenes, so that users can make a change that will apply to all scenes in the project.
UK ecommerce growth in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025 was increasingly shaped by category-specific demand and delivery expectations, with strong performance in pet care, beauty and expedited delivery services offsetting sharp declines in fashion and homewares, according to new data from Scurri Unpacked, the quarterly ecommerce shipping insights platform from delivery management and customer experience provider Scurri. Performance varied significantly by sector during the Golden Quarter. Pet Care emerged as the fastest-growing category, with shipment volumes up +35.2% year on year. Beauty and Cosmetics grew +10.3% YoY, underlining the resilience of the category during peak gifting periods where speed, certainty and presentation matter most. By contrast, Fashion shipments declined -9.1% YoY, while Homewares fell sharply (-24.6%), pointing to ongoing consumer caution around discretionary and big-ticket purchases. Food and Drink remained relatively stable (+2.6%), while Gifting dipped slightly (-3.1%) following a particularly strong Q4 in 2024.
eBay Advertising has launched its 2026 UK Marketing Trends Calendar, offering brands and sellers a data-led view of the key seasonal moments, micro-trends and high-intent shopping periods shaping demand across the year. Based on an analysis of eBay UK marketplace data, the calendar pinpoints when demand increases across focus categories – helping brands stay ahead, stay visible and maximise performance during peak periods.The 2026 UK Marketing Trends Calendar can be downloaded here.
Tension between rapid technological change and stagnant organisational skills is threatening the UK’s marketing competitiveness, according to the European Marketing Agenda 2026. The report, supported by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), warns that while 78% of CMOs expect marketing budgets to remain stable or grow in 2026, they lack the ‘cross-functional’ AI and digital skills to deploy resources effectively. Surveying over 1,800 marketing and sales professionals across Europe, Asia and Africa, the report identifies AI as the top strategic focus for 2026 (43%), alongside sales and performance marketing (43%). Brand management was the third (38%) area of focus, followed by the transformation of internal capabilities and marketing operations (20%).
Insights (carried out across 1,000 UK shoppers) from retail and shopper marketing agency, Savvy, has today revealed that 58% of UK shoppers indicate that they’re likely to get involved in the World Cup this summer. This interest spans life stages and demographics, with highest intent among families – 72% of older families and 71% of young families plan to get involved, along with 69% of those aged 18 to 35. For many, the World Cup is the highlight of the sporting calendar. More than half (53%) of the UK shoppers planning to get involved say the World Cup is the most important international sporting event. Even with late kick-off times, the appetite to watch remains high. Two-thirds of engaged shoppers (68%) say they usually watch at least some football during the World Cup. And for many, it’s a social occasion – 65% see it as a good excuse for a get-together, while 62% say football is more enjoyable when watched in a group.
PressHop, a UK on-demand news content platform, has launched an interactive mapping feature that allows publishers to locate, filter and assign citizen journalists to breaking news events in real-time. The new feature enables news organisations to pinpoint breaking stories, from stabbings and shootings to protests and transport emergencies. These events will be accessible on a live map populated by PressHop’s network of 52,000 verified contributors in the UK, USA, and India. Publishers can now search by location or postcode, filter events by category using contributor-added icons (shooting, protest, emergency), and directly assign nearby “Hoppers” to cover developing stories. The system draws on multiple sources including Hoppers on the ground, social media monitoring, and emergency services data. The platform now serves more than 370 media brands including major publishers, Newsquest, Metro, and Reach PLC.
ITV has announced a new partnership with Banijay Rights, the global distribution arm of content powerhouse Banijay Entertainment, and its UK production group, Banijay UK, creating a significant expansion of ITV’s YouTube sales offering. ITV YouTube Sales team will now represent world-class shows from Banijay Rights, giving brands the opportunity to buy advertising around even more premium, broadcast-quality content on YouTube. This new announcement builds on ITV’s existing YouTube network which, in 2025, saw UK views grow by 51% and total ad impressions grow 35% year on year. The deal also complements Banijay Rights’ existing large-scale YouTube channel network, which last year amassed over 10 billion views for global brands including Mr Bean and The Osbournes.
Exclaimer, a provider of email signature management solutions, has launched Brand Kits, a new capability that introduces governed, multi-brand management across email signatures and video meetings, addressing a growing operational gap in how organisations manage brand identity at scale. Brand Kits is designed to address brand consistency by separating brand definition from design execution. Instead of embedding logos, colors, and visual elements into individual templates, organisations define brand assets once and apply them consistently across multiple email signature templates and video meeting branding themes.
66% of shoppers have already tried or would be open to using an AI assistant like ChatGPT or a retailer’s own AI tool to buy online. But new research suggests a poor initial online discovery experience can be damaging: 69% of early users have immediately abandoned an AI shopping assistant when shown irrelevant product suggestions. Only 28% tried rephrasing their question and kept interacting until the AI found something relevant. Commissioned by Nosto, the survey of 2,000 US and UK consumers suggests that 72% of consumers now expect AI assistants to help with online shopping. This includes helping to find deals (59%) and gift ideas (44%) as well as offering fashion buying advice, such as suggesting complete-the-look bundles (40%) or answering questions about which items go well together (41%).
Just 9% of male football fans in the UK say they feel represented by the advertising they see, highlighting a growing disconnect between football audiences and how brands attempt to engage them. That’s according to new research from human insights company GWI, which surveyed 26,000 male football fans across the UK to better understand their interests and attitudes ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The findings reveal that drinking habits are changing more than traditional football advertising suggests, with 47% regularly choosing non-alcoholic beer and one in ten (10%) not drinking alcohol at all. Emotional wellbeing is also becoming a bigger focus for male football fans, with almost half (47%) saying they feel comfortable talking openly about their mental health. Despite this, a significant amount of football advertising, particularly online, continues to promote a narrow, ‘lads’-driven image of male fans, relying on stereotypes and outdated ideas of masculinity. GWI data suggests brands need more nuanced portrayals of fans, both male and female, if they want to cut through ahead of the World Cup.
Taboola has announced that Reach has selected DeeperDive, a Gen AI answer engine that lives directly on publisher websites and leverages their own content. As part of the agreement, Reach will use DeeperDive across sites including Express and Daily Star. Since launching in 2025, many of the world’s top publishers have implemented DeeperDive to meet these challenges head on, including Gannett I USA TODAY Network, India Today Group, BuzzFeed Asia, The Bangkok Post, and more.
Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), the global financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, has released a new report, The Art of the Opt-In: Why List Building is Only the Beginning. Developed by Intuit Mailchimp and Ascend2, this report includes findings from 6,192 consumers and 2,057 marketers across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia/New Zealand – outlining practical guidance to close the gap between consumer expectations and marketing execution at opt-in and beyond. In the UK, 69% of consumers have opted into email communications, which is the highest amongst all countries surveyed, and 51% to text. Similarly, 88% are comfortable with a two-step opt-in process at sign-up, and 34% have completed pop-up forms, suggesting UK consumers are very willing to opt-into different forms of email and text marketing. But they are also the most skeptical versus the other countries polled; 40% don’t trust brands with their personal data, 55% will unsubscribe due to irrelevant content and 51% fear they will receive too many emails or texts after opting into brand communications. The data shows UK consumers will opt in, but only if their expectations are met around message volume, clarity, and how their personal data will be used.
