Sky Media is growing its Sports Marketplace portal, after seeing it become its fastest-growing revenue proposition ever. As part of the full launch, Sky Media is introducing a host of new capabilities and is kicking off the season with a live, blind auction offering brands the opportunity to secure a coveted advertising spot in the return of the Premier League. For the first time, brands have been able to bid directly on the Sports Marketplace platform to secure a 30″ ‘Event Lockout’ spot during the opening weekend clash between Chelsea and Crystal Palace. Sky has also expanded the sport portfolio available via its marketplace; introduced new commercial bundles and tailored entry points; and redesigned the marketplace’s interface.
Today Pepsi Max has unveiled a new campaign, ‘Bring Out The Flavour.’ Created in collaboration with, and starring its community of creators, the Pepsi Pioneers, this marks Pepsi Max’s first-ever co-created campaign. Spotlighting Pepsi Max’s core summer flavour range – cherry, lime, and mango – the ‘Bring Out The Flavour’ campaign encourages fans to seek out feel-good moments amidst life’s daily pressures. Featuring Pepsi Pioneers, including Emma Johnson (@emmasrectangle), Formz (@_formz), and Luke Vernon (@lukevernon), each campaign spot illustrates how these flavours act as a catalyst, shifting the mood and energy of Pepsi Max’s Pioneers from an ‘8 to a 10.’ The campaign features the Charli XCX track ‘I Don’t Care,’ and will be activated through a 20-second hero TV spot, nationwide OOH placements, and digital and social media activations.
According to Worldpanel by Numerator’s Entertainment on Demand (EoD) Q2 2025 report, sports content now account for 24% of new paid TV subscriptions as global streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video double down on partnerships and exclusive rights deals. This aligns with the rising popularity of women’s football, now watched by one-third of football-watching households in Great Britain, Germany, Spain and France. Disney+ stands to benefit having secured pan-European rights to the UEFA Women’s Champions League, with all 75 matches from the coming season available at no extra cost to subscribers. Three in 10 global households currently subscribe to Disney+, presenting a clear growth opportunity. Globally, 45% of households now watch sports regularly, rising to 47% among VoD subscribers. Ad-supported streaming continues to gain momentum, with paid ad-tiered subscriptions rising 3% quarter-on-quarter and achieving 14% growth since the start of 2025. More than half of households now have one of these services, with 31% of new subscriptions in Q2 (vs. 22% a year ago) attributed to paid ad-supported VoD, rising notably to 37% in Great Britain and 42% in France. Over the course of the last year, European markets have led VoD growth, with market penetration increasing by 2% and overall subscriptions up by 10%.
Three quarters (75%) of UK marketers say that key decisions are made by senior leadership without consulting those closest to the action. That’s according to new research from digital experience platform Optimizely, which surveyed 100 UK marketers. The findings reveal how top-down decision-making and excessive reporting demands are stifling marketing performance. Four in five marketers (81%) say leadership expects them to deliver more with fewer resources. But, despite this pressure, many say they are not empowered to succeed. A fifth (19%) spend more time reporting than executing, while 21% say they are stuck justifying their work instead of actually doing it. This level of accountability, without being involved in key decisions, is creating a knock-on effect. Nearly one in five (17%) say the business does not fully understand the complexity of modern marketing, while 16% feel under constant pressure to prove the value of their work. Meanwhile, 15% believe that too much of marketing has become unmeasurable, making it difficult to demonstrate impact in the first place. At a systems level, the disconnect is just as clear. Although over half (53%) of marketers are looking for a more unified system to simplify workflows and improve performance, more than one in 10 (12%) cite lack of leadership buy-in when it comes to making this a reality.
Media company SWNS Media Group has acquired Creatorville, a digital content consultancy. The acquisition sees Creatorville Founder Sam Barcroft assume the role of Group Chief Executive Officer and become a shareholder in SWNS Media Group. Current CEO Paul Walters will become Non-executive Chair and Co-founder Andrew Young will become a Non-executive Director. Martin Winter will remain as SWNS Managing Director and Chris Pharo will remain as CEO of 72Point.
A new Storyblok survey of 200 senior marketing professionals at mid to large-sized brands has revealed high levels of stress impacting the profession. Storyblok surveyed job satisfaction, attitudes to AI, and personal working preferences. Only 33.5% of marketers said they had a good work-life balance, 24% stated they were stressed all or most of the time, with only 6% of marketers said they were never stressed. 9% of marketers say that work related stress causes them to argue ‘all the time’ with their partners, 13.5% often, 33% sometimes, and 20% never. When asked how often they checked work emails on holiday, one in ten said every hour, 47.5% multiple times, 18% once a day, and 10% never. 25% of marketers said they could not stop thinking about work when on holiday. 33% of marketers said they did additional work early in the morning before normal business hours. When asked what their most productive times to do work were, perhaps concerningly for businesses, 56% of marketers are more productive outside normal working hours.
Sylvester Stallone-backed AI solutions provider Largo.ai has acquired London-based market research technology and consultancy firm QuMind.
Digital experience platform (DXP) Contentstack has announced the availability of Contentstack Edge in the new AI Agents and Tools category of AWS Marketplace. Customers can now use AWS Marketplace to discover, buy, and deploy Contentstack’s DXP using their AWS accounts.
