Debrief 2025: How brands are redefining connection, creativity and commerce

From AI-powered cider campaigns to livestreamed beauty empires, IAB Debrief 2025 brought together some of the most innovative digital thinkers in marketing. This year’s showcase revealed how brands are cutting through the noise with emotional storytelling, agile creativity and data-led experimentation across the open web. 

Hosted by IAB UK, the fast-paced morning saw case studies from Alpro, Heineken, The National Lottery, 2K Games, P. Louise, each revealing not just what worked, but why. Here’s what we learned from a morning of ideas shaping the future of digital media.  

Brewing a retail media first: Alpro x Amazon 

Retail media continues to surge, and Alpro Barista’s partnership with Amazon Live proved just how powerful it can be when done right. With coffee culture booming online but penetration still low, the brand wanted to emotionally connect with shoppers and position plant-based milk as part of everyday coffee rituals. 

The Alpro Barista Coffee Culture Club marked a retail media first for grocery in Europe, blending full-funnel awareness with a test-and-learn approach. The results speak for itself: a 6.5x increase in sales, a 16% lift in brand consideration, and a 3.9% rise in unaided ad awareness among those exposed. 

As Jonathan Ruberry and Paul Hackwell shared, the campaign’s success came from treating retail media not just as a performance channel, but a brand-building one, using creativity, context and cultural connection to convert trial into long-term loyalty. 

From overlooked to unmissable: Heineken x GumGum 

How do you grow a premium cider in a saturated market? For Heineken’s Old Mout, the challenge was reaching a declining audience of 18–34-year-olds while introducing three new flavours under its Moutopia platform. 

Partnering with GumGum, the team used AI-driven contextual intelligence to identify untapped audiences based on mindset rather than demographics. One high-performing segment was travel enthusiasts, three times more attentive than expected. 

The campaign achieved a 17% uplift in brand awareness, a 23% rise in mental availability among female drinkers, and a 14% increase in positive brand associations. 

For Dan Glynn and Jess Aylett, the takeaway was clear: agility and trust are everything. With a 20-week campaign window, optimisation was constant, proving the value of open-web creativity beyond walled gardens, from programmatic storytelling to QR-led activations. 

2K Games x Snap: Levelling up fandom 

With Borderlands 4 launching six years after the last instalment, 2K Games needed to reignite excitement among long-time fans while recruiting a new generation of players. Partnering with Snap Inc., the team built a full-funnel campaign designed to make Borderlands part of gaming culture again. 

Snap’s audience was a natural fit with 77% identifying as gamers, enabling precise creative testing across AR, video and reminder ads. The strategy delivered tangible results: an 11% lift in purchase intent in Germany, 15% brand awareness growth, and a 3x higher call-to-action rate through immersive formats. 

The campaign blurred virtual and real worlds with The Ultimate Loot Drop at London Waterloo, a two-week OOH takeover featuring cosplayers, AR mirrors and interactive vending machines. The stunt generated 7M digital impressions, 7,000 live interactions, and a 15-point brand lift, closing the loop between offline engagement and in-game downloads. 

The rise of creator marketing 

Elizabeth Lane, IAB UK’s Head of Insight, unveiled new research from IAB Compass: Creator Marketing, highlighting a fast-evolving ecosystem where creators are central to brand storytelling and commerce. 

Today, 1 in 4 people globally identify as creators — not all monetising, but all shaping culture. Creator marketing revenue is forecast to hit £2.6 billion by 2030, with growth extending beyond Gen Z to older demographics. 

Key trends include the rise of micro and nano creators, live shopping, and AI tools that match brands with the right talent and optimise content at scale. 

Elizabeth’s advice for marketers: prioritise authenticity over reach. Invest in long-term creator partnerships, embrace cross-platform diversity, and build community through purpose-driven storytelling. 

P. Louise x TikTok: Sleighing Christmas early 

Few brands embody the blend of entertainment and commerce like P. Louise. What began as a self-funded beauty brand now dominates TikTok Shop, driven by immersive storytelling and relentless creativity. 

In August, P. Louise hosted a 14-hour TikTok Live event that delivered £2 million in sales, quadrupled average order value, and pushed the brand to the #1 spot for beauty on TikTok Shop. 

As Bridey Lipscombe, CMO at P.Louise shared, their formula mixes UGC, storytelling and sheer scale, streaming 16 hours a day, creating 10–18 organic posts daily, and turning every product launch into a cultural event. 

Offline and online worlds merge through the brand’s “pink castle” HQ and upcoming P. Louise City - a 19,000 sq ft immersive space that brings beauty, retail and experience together. The result is a highly engaged community that doesn’t just buy, it believes in the brand. 

The National Lottery x Hearts & Science: Becoming a super supporter 

From one gold medal in 1996 to over a thousand today, Team GB’s success is powered by National Lottery players, but most people didn’t know it. In 2024, Hearts & Science set out to change perceptions by positioning TNL as The Super Supporter. 

The campaign united digital storytelling, agile social activations, and real-world experiences. A “Path to Paris” podcast series, creator collaborations, and fan zones brought players closer to athletes, while dynamic creative across Meta, TikTok and X ensured TNL was part of every celebratory moment. 

The results were gold-worthy: 2x increase in belief that the National Lottery funds good causes, 8% uplift in purchase intent, and 10% higher consideration among diverse communities. 

It was a masterclass in how digital channels can humanise institutions, turning everyday participation into something to be proud of. 

The big picture: Creativity, culture and connection 

Across every session, one theme stood out: connection. Whether through contextual targeting, creator collaborations, or community-first commerce, this year’s speakers showed how brands are moving beyond impressions to build emotional resonance and measurable impact. 

With that, Debrief 2025 proved that the future of digital isn’t just about where brands show up, it’s about how they make people feel when they do.