Sean Singleton

We’re thrilled to announce Brave Bison’s acquisition of leading strategy and insights consultancy MTM!         With an impressive client roster featuring the likes of Google, Samsung Ads, Figma, Formula E, England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Sky Sports and BBC, MTM is a trusted audience strategy and insights partner for major global businesses. 🌎      MTM helps some of the biggest names in technology, entertainment and sport scale new business models, evolve products, shape positioning and reframe their relevancy in line with rapidly evolving consumer behaviours, cultural trends and commercial realities. As they join the Brave Bison universe, we become “uniquely positioned to help tomorrow’s super brands capitalise on complexity,” as our CEO and Executive Chairman Oli Green puts it.       Operating alongside but independently from our existing marketing and technology divisions, MTM will form our new insights and consultancy division. This will combine MTM’s depth of industry knowledge and breadth of research methodologies with our agile operating model and proprietary AI tooling across Brave Bison, SocialChain and Engage Digital Partners.      Welcome to the herd team MTM! We can’t wait to get started together on this new chapter. 🤝    Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ejHDNS93

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What a day! Yesterday Thinkbox Vision’s event saw many marketeers gather to explore the TV industry and the role advertising continues to play.   Our Chief Commercial Officer, Rak Patel was amongst the industry experts reflecting on the current state of play, speaking on a panel alongside commercial leads from Sky Media UK, ITV and Disney to discuss where TV is going and how it will better serve brands.   Key takeaways from the session include: - Reach, Trust & Effectiveness: TV remains a trusted platform, delivering reach and reliable results for brands in a fast-changing environment. - Industry Collaboration: Initiatives like Project Lantern are driving progress, creating universal measurement standards and increasing accessibility—especially for SMEs. - Positive Regulation: Governance and oversight provide brands with the confidence to invest in TV, knowing their campaigns are in a safe and effective space.   Attendees then got to hear the latest news from Project Lantern, a joint measurement initiative between Sky, ITV and Channel 4. As well as insights into the Educating Yorkshire series with Mr Burton sitting down with Twofour’s David Clews and AJ Odudu.

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There seems to be a bit of a split in the comms industry at the moment about how much brands should be focussing on GEO. The case against: we don't really know what's going on. And Google is still more widely used than ChatGPT. By a LONG way. Anyone with GEO in a creds deck is selling snake oil. The case for: it's not about user numbers, it's about the pace of change. LLM based platforms will end the dominance of search when it comes to how people find stuff online. We should at least try and find out what's going on. We do not know for sure how these things work. In fact, neither do the people who built them – if that sounds a little far-fetched, have a listen to Black Box, a podcast by The Guardian. (That you Nicky Regazzoni for that recommendation. TLDR, we genuinely don't know, for sure, how these answers are formed. Even Sam Altman was surprised by how good GPT-3.5 was. They didn't see that breakthrough coming.) But the idea that should stop us is nonsense and, frankly, lazy. You never know exactly why every customer bought your product. But you can, with some half decent research, find out what tipped the balance on the typical sale. You never know exactly whether a journalist will pick up a story. But if you scan their past coverage, you can have a pretty good guess as to whether the odds are 'pretty good, actually' or effectively zero. You never know exactly why one campaign 'went viral' and another flopped. But you can research trends and algorithms to get you a pretty good as to where the next one will fall between the two. We will never know – with 100% confidence – why ChatGPT recommends Pepsi over Coca Cola , or Broadcom over Qualcomm, or Corona over Modelo. But the notion we shouldn't be looking at data and trends and advising brands on how to behave accordingly is defeatist, and an example of letting perfect get in the way of useful. As for whether GEO is a friend or a foe of the PR industry – I spoke to PR Moment recently about that. Thanks for including me Elizabeth Howlett for including me. https://lnkd.in/e_bqiA2P

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As the son of a retired music teacher who also loves cars - this campaign struck a chord. A digital Out-of-Home campaign from Audi UK translating the engines of its RS models into sheet music 🎼🎵 Each creative features a single line of sheet music, created by composer Ben Parry, that translates the notations of a specific Audi model named underneath - such as the E-tron and RS3. The campaign is a great example of the opportunities on offer to be brand bold and demand audience attention creatively through the public screen of OOH. Read more in Campaign: https://okt.to/wkbB1V #jcduk #OOH #audi

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UK ad spend is rising faster than the economy. The latest Advertising Association / WARC Expenditure Report has dropped and it shows that adspend is up 8% in Q1 2025, led by growth in search (+12.3%) and online display (+10.1%). That gap says a lot about where marketers are placing their bets: short-term performance, measurable outcomes, and formats that can flex with shifting priorities. It also reflects the pressure brands are under. With sluggish GDP growth and tighter scrutiny on budgets, advertisers are looking for ways to do more with less - reallocating spend toward agile, efficient digital channels. But that shift only works if the underlying infrastructure can support it. Without full visibility into how spend is delivered and what value it returns, performance-led buying can quickly become performance assumed buying. That’s where transparent, efficient programmatic systems make a real difference. When every impression is trackable and every pound accountable, brands can react faster, spend smarter, and build trust into every transaction. More ad spend isn’t the full story, how that spend works is what really matters. Read the full AA/WARC Expenditure Report here: https://lnkd.in/eermZHYX

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The Cannes Lions Creativity Report is your tool for understanding which Awards, sectors and countries were on the rise in 2025 – so you can turn data-based insights into actionable strategies for growth. This year’s Awards data showed that independent agencies are having their moment, proving you don’t have to be big to think big. Find out which countries climbed the ranks, and which regions are at the top of their game. Read the report now | https://lnkd.in/epMMwusG

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