Overwolf

📣 Shoutout to Magnite. Their revenue trajectory tells you everything about where programmatic is heading. Here's how the largest independent SSP got built: In 2021, they acquired SpotX (now part of Magnite) for $1.17B. At the time, the SSP market was still on the back foot with streaming. Magnite was already ahead of it. By the end of 2025, $714M ARR with CTV growing 17% year on year. That same instinct is now pointing at gaming. CTV is the hottest topic in ad tech for 2026. Digital audio is also gaining traction, and both are worthy of the attention they're receiving. But there's a bigger story here... 🎮 ~65% of the US population are gamers 🎮 ~87% of Gen Z are gamers 🎮 2.5x more attention than social and open web 💰 Less than 5% of media investment That gap is already starting to close. And I believe this team are behind a major part of that trend: Sean Buckley President, Revenue Erik Hovanec: CSO, Magnite Jennifer Fagnini: DSP Partnerships Matt McLeggon: Senior Vice President, Advanced Solutions & Channel Revenue Clare Dunnett: Group SVP, Client Operations Cassidy Coles: VP & Managing Director David Snocken: VP Strategic Partnerships Ashley Font Wheeler SVP, DV+ platform Scott Solomon: Vice President, DV+ Platform Rebecca Ackers: VP, Commercial UK & DV+ EMEA Paolo Patatu: VP of Strategy & Business Development - DV+ International Matthew Schmidt: VP, Revenue Strategy and Sales Enablement Damien Véran: Group SVP, International Revenue Julie Selman: SVP Head of EMEA A few noteworthy gaming partnerships they've secured for advertisers in 2026: → Overwolf: direct access to 100s of the world's biggest titles → Roblox: mobile in-app rewarded video ads → PHȲND: a new ad pipeline via games on Smart TVs Gaming is becoming a key player in the media landscape, and those SSPs that recognized the importance of premium inventory early are set to benefit the most. Magnite was proactive with CTV before the budgets followed suit. The same kind of foresight is at play here. I believe that this team are set up to capitalize in 2026. 🐇

🚨 Our March gaming newsletter for brands & advertisers is HERE! Highlights include: 🥔 Pringles drops exclusive World of Warcraft mount with limited-time promo 🚀 Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios brings Project Hail Mary into Fortnite 🍬 Skittles turns a flute into a gaming controller on Twitch 🃏 Mattel, Inc. brings Uno to Fortnite & Roblox with creator-led experiences 🏔️ Ubisoft & Authentic Brands Group bring Quiksilver & DC Shoes into Riders Republic Read in full (and subscribe) 👇

🥤 In 1999, PepsiMan launched as a PlayStation game. A branded character. A loading screen. A logo. Marketers checked the box and called it “in-game advertising”. That was the ceiling for a long time. 👀 Now look at a Fortnite or Roblox branded activation today... It seems that we are rehashing the same thing with better graphics. You still have to build the whole thing. You still have to hope players show up. You're still making the game about the brand, instead of making the brand part of the game. The radical shift looks completely different when you consider the premium ad solutions that owned-and-operated gaming platforms like Overwolf offer brands in 2026. Here, you don't need to build an entirely new game. You can target players inside the games they're already obsessed with. Instead of interrupting them, you read the moment and contextually trigger branded messaging and rewards at the perfect moment based on rich real-time user data. 🏆A player just won a ranked match. 🎯A player just unlocked a new achievement. 🥤A player just hit 60 minutes of gameplay. Those are rich, real, first-party signals that tell you exactly who this person is and what they're ready to receive right now. The media plan question used to be: "how do we get our logo in front of gamers?" The better question is: "which signal in this session is our moment?" That's the gap between renting space inside a game and actually belonging there, and that’s what is generating metrics like 36% purchase intent uplift and 42% brand favorability uplift for our clients. Interested in hearing more? Reach out to our team: https://overwolf.com/ads

🎉 We're proud to share that Overwolf Ads has been shortlisted in two categories at the Campaign Media Company of the Year Awards 2026: - Best Adtech Provider - Best Gaming Platform Thank you to Campaign US & Campaign UK for the recognition! These nominations are a testament to how Overwolf's technology is shaping the future of gaming media, helping brands connect with players in meaningful ways while empowering the creator community that makes gaming experiences possible. Read more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dvU3VMtk

🐺 Meet The Wolf Pack! Say hello to Declan J D., Tebex’s Head of Support, Content and Safety. Declan brings a ton of life experience to the role, which shows in his patience, steady leadership, and his ability to handle whatever surprises the day throws his way. He’s also someone who clearly enjoys a bit of the unexpected. From survival games to adventurous food while traveling, Declan clearly doesn’t shy away from the unusual. Safe to say, having someone this prepared for anything is pretty great. Want to join him? https://lnkd.in/d8-xySNh #NowHiring #GamingIndustry

🎲 Mattel just spent $159 million to own 100% of its gaming joint venture You would be mistaken to read this as a toy company buying a game studio. Instead, it’s one of the most under-appreciated strategic pivots in modern business. 🧸 Rewind to 2017  → Toys "R" Us going bankrupt  → Kids choosing Fortnite over Fisher-Price  → Leadership churning through CEOs with no plan Mattel, Inc. was operating under an assumption that it was a toy company that makes products (it wasn't). It was a manager of franchises that *happened* to express those franchises as physical toys. When Ynon Kreiz took over as CEO in 2018, he rebuilt the whole thing phase by phase: 📱Mobile (First) → Joint venture with NetEase put UNO on every phone in the world → 550M downloads + $200M in annual revenue by 2024 → Higher margins than physical toys & first-party data retail can’t provide 🎮 PC & Console → Partnered with world-class game developers → Build Hot Wheels Unleashed in Unreal Engine → 8M players. 1M+ custom car designs 🏠 Then UGC → Launched Barbie DreamHouse Tycoon on Roblox → Hit 500M visits → Barbie doll sales up 29% that quarter Now Mattel owns its gaming operation outright, is becoming a first-party publisher, and has opened up its IP so independent creators can build officially licensed Mattel experiences. On this specifically, Mattel's SVP Marcus Liassides summed up the whole strategy in one line: "Our strategy isn't Roblox. Our strategy is creator." This is the part that resonates with me personally. At Overwolf + CurseForge, we're enabling the exact same model: ⚡️ Brought Hasbro + Power Rangers into ARK:SA 💰 $10 premium mod, 6M downloads 🐢 Then Paramount & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles If you're a brand sitting on iconic IP and still treating gaming as a campaign line item, Mattel just spent eight years showing you what the alternative looks like. The playbook is right here. ------ 🔗 Link in comments for a brilliant in-depth breakdown from Bastian Bergmann.

"Being where people spend their time, that's the most important" Gamers aren’t just playing; they’re living in a digital ecosystem that has replaced traditional media. When someone is in a 4-hour session, they aren't seeing your TV spots or scrolling your social ads. Andrew Martinson (H&R Block) and M. Chad De Luca unpack the massive opportunity within the gaming creator ecosystem on The Leaderboard Insights Podcast. 🎬 Watch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/dsSkJ6bE #InGameAdvertising #GamingNews #GamingIndustry

🏀 I've watched the same $1 billion mistake happen every March Madness for 10 years. And this year, it's going to cost brands more than ever... The same TV and streaming inventory gets flooded year after year, fighting over the same ~1 million average viewers per game. The CPMs will be brutal. The ad clutter even worse. 🐺 My philosophy has always been the same: the most underpriced opportunity is already there, but most media plans aren't built to see it. Each year, we see the same primary target of 18-34 males for March Madness👇 • That demo is the single largest segment of the global gaming population, accounting for 38% of all players • They spend roughly 2x as many hours per week gaming as watching live TV • The culture is there, but advertisers are still buying TV spots I call it "familiarity bias"... hear me out 🤓⚖️ Media buyers personally use Netflix, Hulu, Roku - so they completely get that space. This is exactly why CTV is the biggest trend of the year, and billions are flowing in that direction. Gaming, on the other hand, is on the back foot. It's seen as an innovation buy, something you activate when a client specifically asks for gamers. Otherwise, it stays well off the plan. Unless a client directly says "I want to reach gamers", they're not necessarily going to find our audience. And that's the problem, because their target demo is already there👇 • Overwolf reaches 113 million players monthly (including the exact demo your March Madness buy is trying to reach) • Our average sessions run 77 minutes of active, leaned-in attention (no outside distractions + 100% ad share of voice) Pairing your March Madness CTV/TV media buys with premium in-game advertising fills a blank space of attention that compounds your ROI. → TV gets you the "lean-back" moment. → Gaming gets you the "lean-in" hours surrounding it. The inventory is contextual, measurable, and you're not fighting every other brand for the same eyeballs. 🐰 This arbitrage isn't hidden. Media plans just aren't built to see it yet.

🔮 3 things we heard at #CampaignGamingSummit that should change how you're building your media plan in 2026. Last week, Overwolf Ads was at Campaign UK Gaming Summit. The conversations were some of the most direct we've heard the industry have about where gaming actually sits in modern advertising. There were brilliant insights shared throughout the day, including from: 🎮 brent koning, Global Head of Gaming, dentsu 📺 Jamie Lyons, Global Head of Gaming, PHD 💫 Luke A., Gaming Strategy Director, EssenceMediacom UK 🕹️ 🔥Daniel Clayton🔥, Marketing Manager, Gaming, Logitech 🏦 Laura Aspinall, Partnerships Manager, HSBC 🎡 Adrien Guerra Country Manager, Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe ⭐️ Nathan Lindberg 🔜 Campaign Gaming Summit, VP of Brand Partnerships, Overwolf Here's what stayed with us: 🎯 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐲. It keeps getting filed there. "Let's try targeting gamers this quarter." That framing is costing brands real reach. Because this isn't about targeting gamers. It's simply about reaching every demographic (parents, Gen Z, millennials, sports fans, luxury buyers) during a high-attention media consumption touchpoint. Playtime = primetime. Treating it as a one-off experiment is a choice to miss the audience. 📊 𝐈𝐧-𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞. Not on social. Not even on CTV. The attention quality, the session lengths, the purchase intent, the brand recall; the numbers keep showing up in ways that are hard to argue with once you've seen a properly executed campaign. The industry is still catching up to what the data is already saying. 🗺️ 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲. Not a gaming test. A strategy. With the same rigor, the same integration into the broader plan, the same seat at the table when budgets are being set. Social got there because marketers stopped treating it as optional. Gaming is at that inflection point right now. 👾 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐜-𝐌𝐚𝐧. We brought a Pac-Man machine and offered prizes for the highest scores. What we did not anticipate was the level of competitiveness and concentration trying to rank on our leaderboard that emerged throughout the day. Turns out you don't need to be a hardcore "gamer" to get completely absorbed in a game. Funny, that.