Interactive entertainment has become a cornerstone of omnichannel media strategy, said Ben Hovaness, chief media officer at OMD Worldwide.
“We see interactive entertainment playing two key roles,” he said in this interview with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “The first is providing incremental reach plus depth reach because it enables us to reach many individuals who we might not be able to get to as easily with linear CTV or some other digital media channels.”
The depth, Hovaness said, comes from capturing audiences “in a very high attention state.” Just as important, the logged-in nature of gaming platforms creates a strong data signal.
“All the data flowing out of their sessions is consented,” he said. “So we can use that to drive both targeting and measurement.”
That shift, he noted, means gaming is “no longer something that’s relegated to test budgets. We think of it as a primary channel alongside larger ones such as CTV, linear, social [and] search.”
Platform convergence creates new opportunities
As different platforms continue to converge, Hovaness sees “a few very exciting opportunities for advertisers.” Chief among them is value exchange at scale, where players receive rewards for viewing ads.
“This is not a new concept,” he said. “Value exchange ads have been around for many years. But what’s new is the scaling potential that’s enabled by platform convergence and growing user counts that turn it into a much more viable format.”
Another area of enthusiasm is creator-to-commerce linkage: connecting the work of gaming creators to measurable purchase outcomes.
“Creators in the gaming space are not a new phenomenon,” Hovaness said, “but the ability to link creator activity to commerce flowing out of it is new.”
60-30-10 approach to balancing brand and performance
Asked how brands should balance scale, branding and performance when investing in interactive environments, Hovaness outlined a strategic framework:
“We recommend a 60-30-10 split: 60% proven native integrations that we already know generate results, 30% creator-led integrations and 10% frontier experimental budgets,” he said.
That final slice, he added, ensures that “the next time we’re going through the allocation process, we can do it a little bit more intelligently than we did this time.”
Navigating measurement and attribution in a post-cookie world
Gaming, unlike web-based environments, presents a new set of measurement challenges.
“Gaming is not a cookie-enabled space,” Hovaness said. “Cookies are a browser technology, and most of this gaming activity is happening in apps.”
Advertisers also need to adapt to new metrics.
“The metrics flowing out of these environments are dissimilar to what they’re used to,” he said. “For example, attention is often a more useful metric coming out of gaming environments than it is in other channels, and certainly more useful in a gaming context than viewability.”
OMD helps clients reconcile these differing metrics “as part of a broader media view.”
Standardization and safety improvements
Looking toward 2026, Hovaness said OMD is watching two major trends: the standardization of value exchange ads and improved safety standards.
He expects further growth in ad formats that reward engagement.
“We think they can be scaled up still further by standardizing the format, transaction model, and so on,” he said.
At the same time, advancements in platform transparency will allow for better brand alignment.
“As platforms start broadcasting age ranges and content standards more consistently, we can use that to guide advertiser budgets in a way that aligns with their brand standards,” he said.
