How AI Is Transforming Advertising During the Big Game
The Big Game is about more than just football — it’s the pinnacle event for advertisers. Each year, brands invest millions in 30-second ad spots, enlisting celebrities and using humor to create memorable moments. But what truly drives success for these ads? Is it the celebrity cameo, the emotional narrative or something else entirely? Nexxen Studio uses cutting-edge AI content recognition technology as well as unique emotional measurement tools to uncover answers. By analysing thousands of ads across millions of data points, we can unlock what makes them resonate with audiences — and how advertisers can use these findings to their advantage. Decoding Ad Performance with AI Our AI-powered video content recognition solution identifies every element within a video — celebrities, people, animals, objects and even actions — providing a detailed blueprint of an ad’s content. By pairing this with facial coding technology (which measures real-time emotional reactions and attention levels), we’re able to gain unparalleled insight into how audiences respond to different elements of an ad. Let’s take Chris Pratt’s moustache-clad appearance in Pringles’ 2024 ad as an example. Our AI tools identified Chris Pratt’s presence and pinpointed exactly when he appeared on screen. Simultaneously, emotional analysis revealed spikes in viewer attention during his scenes. This data, combined with performance metrics, showed that the ad outperformed the average Big Game spot, with Chris Pratt playing a vital role in that win. But Pringles’ success isn’t an isolated case. We found that ads featuring celebrities generated 9% higher viewer engagement than the average on football’s biggest night. However, this insight comes with a caveat: while celebrities enhance ads during the game, they don’t necessarily have the same effect in other contexts. For holiday ads, as an example, featuring fireplaces, snow, Christmas trees or animated characters boosts performance, while celebrities have little impact. And any fitness-related content tends to negatively affect engagement in this context. During the Big Game, however, celebrities, sports-related activities and dogs consistently enhance performance. Wild animals, on the other hand, are less successful in driving positive viewer engagement. (It’s unclear into which category the unforgettable Puppy Monkey Baby falls.) The Role of AI in Shaping the Future of Advertising While AI-generated ads have advanced significantly, the creative talent of human storytellers remains irreplaceable. What AI excels at, however, is delivering the insights needed to inform and refine creative strategies. AI can identify which celebrity resonates with a specific demographic as well as the types of objects or themes that evoke the strongest emotional response and enable hyper-targeted personalization. These insights empower advertisers to optimize their campaigns and gain a competitive edge. At Nexxen, we believe the future of advertising lies in the connection between and combination of human creativity and AI-driven insights. AI sharpens strategies, while human ingenuity brings stories to life, ensuring brands connect with audiences in the most meaningful way. Read Next
Charting the Future at Connexxion ’25: Nexxen’s Exploration of ‘What’s Next’
Nexxen’s second annual sales conference, Connexxion ’25, was held last month in the vibrant city of New Orleans, serving as a convergence point for discussions about the future. Over the course of a few jam-packed days, more than 200 global attendees were immersed in a series of insightful sessions and panels exploring pathways for growth and innovation – not just for Nexxen as an organization, but for our clients, our partners and our industry as a whole. The concept of ‘What’s Next’ was the driving force behind each conversation — encouraging everyone to envision the possibilities within our fast-evolving landscape. After a rousing introduction from our Chief Commercial Officer, Chance Johnson (as well as a special appearance by New Orleans’ very own L.B. Landry marching band!), Will Lee – CEO of Adweek – took to the stage with an inspiring keynote, detailing why ‘Flux is the New Flex.’ Shedding light on emerging trends – including the proliferation of AI – Will’s insights underscored why keeping pace with change is crucial, particularly in an industry like media (a common theme throughout Connexxion ‘25). From there, we heard from executives across our organization – as well as a few clients – about their shared visions for the year ahead and hopes for the future. From elevating client servicing and enhancing customer relationships (more on that below!) to refining our brand and value proposition, from advancements to our product suite to changes to our stock structure – all signs point to 2025 being a year of continued growth for Nexxen. Tyrone Edwards – an authority on customer-centric selling – also made a special guest appearance, captivating attendees with his insights into building resilient, customer-focused strategies. Spread out over two days, Tyrone led us through sessions and exercises emphasizing the importance of actively listening to clients and offering unique solutions to their challenges, reinforcing our commitment to create meaningful partnerships that drive mutual growth. Of course, while our sights were, and are, set on the future, we also took the time to look back and celebrate major accomplishments from the past year (while also having some good, old-fashioned NOLA fun!). 2024 was a banner year for Nexxen – particularly in terms of our financial results – and the Nexxellence Awards Ceremony paid salute to the teams and individuals who made those results possible. Our final dinner at the iconic Brennan’s also gave us an opportunity to recognize each other’s wins, with a toast from our CEO Ofer Druker capping off the night. The exchanges and conversations that took place over these few days in New Orleans are already shaping ‘what’s next’ for us, with teams truly hitting the ground running. For this reason (among many others), Connexxion ’25 was more than just a conference — it was a launchpad for new ideas and relationships, a reminder that meaningful growth demands both compassion and collaboration. And we can’t wait to see – and influence – what’s next. Huge thanks to our partner Volant Events, the Four Seasons New Orleans and everyone who worked in tandem to make Connexxion ’25 such a memorable success. The customer voice https://3911929.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/3911929/2025/DROPS/Connexxion%20Customer%20Video/Nexxen4minv6.mp4 Read Next
The Watch List, Looking for Catalysts in DIS Earnings
Four Winning Brand Strategies for the Big Game
In 2024, more than 123 million viewers tuned into the Big Game, making it the most-watched TV event of all time. Think on that – in the history of American television viewership, last year’s showdown between the Chiefs and 49ers took the number one spot, beating out every other pivotal media event (like the moon landing). And here’s the real kicker: those millions of fans weren’t all glued to the same screen. Our research suggests 2025 will be similar, with viewing plans varying by audience. Sure, 40% of viewers will catch the game on cable or satellite (the top choice for Boomers and Gen-X). But 51% (namely Millennials and Adult Gen-Z) are expected to stream it this year, while the rest will likely watch on a website or through other means. This fragmentation isn’t an obstacle, though – it’s an opportunity. Football’s biggest night is more than a three-hour block on TV; it’s a flurry of activity across phones, streaming platforms and social media. For advertisers, this means that – instead of relying on a monolithic approach (where’s the fun in that, anyway?) – you can use data-driven strategies to meet viewers on the platforms and devices that most resonate with them. Here are four ways to create a brand moment worthy of the Big Game this year: 1. Use Audience Data to Your Advantage Understanding the different ways your audience engages with content during the game will help you craft a winning strategy. After sports fanatics, for instance? Say less. These highly engaged, often Millennial viewers watch live sports weekly (87%) and prefer ad-supported platforms (83%), so try activating campaigns aligned with pre-game analysis or live commentary. 52% of Millennials or Gen-Xers, on the other hand, plan for this night weeks ahead of time, engaging with hosting tips, recipes and decor ideas. Target them with lifestyle content tied to food and event essentials. Using data on fan viewing habits to identify where they are most engaged and activating campaigns that align with their typical behaviors will help you deliver more relevant and impactful messaging, maximize engagement and ensure your brand is present during the moments that matter most. 2. Optimize Your Ad Before You Activate Let’s be honest: the game is as much about ads as it is football. And creating a stand-out campaign requires ensuring your creative resonates before it even goes live. Pre-launch testing helps gauge how audiences respond. Use surveys, attention measurement or emotional response analysis to fine-tune messaging, visuals and tone for maximum impact. Time and again, research has shown that optimizing creative is the key to success when it comes to resonating with audiences, especially if those optimizations are data-driven. By optimizing your ad, you can make sure it drives both measurable and memorable impact – the ultimate touchdown. Football’s biggest night is more than a three-hour block on TV; it’s a flurry of activity across phones, streaming platforms and social media. Football’s biggest night is more than a three-hour block on TV; it’s a flurry of activity across phones, streaming platforms and social media. 3. Dig Deeper with Real-Time Audience Insights Knowing where your audience is watching is just the start – to refine and strengthen your campaign, you’ll need to tap into real-time digital and TV behavior. Some hints? Ads placed alongside live commentary or player stats drive 39% and 36% engagement, respectively, helping your message reach fans who are actively interacting with the game. Nearly 33% of viewers also engage with hosting tips, creating a perfect placement opportunity for brands that align with the more social side of Sunday night. 4. Blend TV and Digital Metrics to Extend Reach and Reduce Waste With viewers spread across platforms, the challenge isn’t just reaching them—it’s doing so efficiently. Blending data sources like ACR, set-top box and app analytics allows you to track cross-screen behaviors, reduce duplication and optimize frequency for a seamless viewer experience. These insights also reveal gaps and overlap between TV and digital audiences, helping you strategically allocate placements. For instance, reach Millennials and Adult Gen-Z on streaming, but engage Boomers and Gen-X on cable. By unifying metrics and refining placements, you can maximize reach and impact across this fragmented landscape. Ready to make the play? The Big Game is your time to shine. Whether you’re building hype before kickoff, engaging fans on second screens or keeping the moment alive after the final whistle, there’s room for every brand to have an impact. It’s not always the biggest budgets that win; it’s the smartest strategies. Read Next
Nexxen Fuels Growth with Live Sports Offerings and Key Partnerships, Reaching Highly Engaged Audiences Across Channels
Linkedin Icon-xtwitterlogo-black Courses taught by programmatic experts from KINESSO, LG Ad Solutions, Tinuiti, Philo and H/L, among others The program’s Honors Council brings together rising industry thought leaders for collaboration and value creation across the supply chain New York, January 6, 2025 – Nexxen, a global, flexible advertising technology platform with deep expertise in data and advanced TV, today announced the launch of Nexxen U, a first-of-its-kind, global education program for linear, Connected TV (“CTV”) and digital convergence, taught by buy- and sell-side industry experts from KINESSO, LG Ad Solutions, Tinuiti, Philo and H/L, among others. An additional component of the program is an Honors Council comprised of rising industry thought leaders spanning agencies, brands, publishers, platforms and broadcasters including KINESSO, Tinuiti, Assembly, Philo and H/L. The council aims to forge cross-marketplace connections and shape Nexxen’s product roadmap to create unique value for clients throughout the company’s end-to-end platform. In 2024, Nexxen surveyed CTV and digital buyers and found that, despite being increasingly tasked with planning programmatic holistically across linear, CTV and digital, 56% of buyers feel they have little-to-no knowledge of the programmatic linear component, inclusive of addressable and data-driven linear. Only 37% feel “very comfortable” in putting together a programmatic linear, CTV and digital video plan. Strikingly, 48% say they are able to devote only one hour or less a week to learning. Nexxen U’s designed outcomes for students range from a confident ability in building cross-channel media plans that address identity, media waste and measurement challenges to an intermediate-level understanding of the industry’s current state, including challenges, opportunities and solutions for advertisers, as well as the sell-side perspective. The courses are complemented by exclusive research reports, playbooks, SME interviews and webinars. “Finding the right resources to learn about converged linear, streaming and digital is as fragmented as the media space itself. With so many of our buyers focused on linear and CTV, we saw the opportunity to build an accessible, centralized digital destination that empowers buyers to master converged media for their campaigns,” said Kara Puccinelli, Chief Customer Officer, Nexxen. “Holistic campaigns are critical for scalable, audience-centric reach customized to viewer behavior, but this comes with inherent complexities,” said Peter Parisi, VP of Addressable Strategy & Activation, KINESSO. “KINESSO is committed to simplifying and unifying our clients’ media, data and measurement — and having an education-focused partner like Nexxen enables us to do just that while moving the industry forward.” About Nexxen Nexxen empowers advertisers, agencies, publishers and broadcasters around the world to utilize data and advanced TV in the ways that are most meaningful to them. Our flexible and unified technology stack comprises a demand-side platform (“DSP”) and supply-side platform (“SSP”), with the Nexxen Data Platform at its core. With streaming in our DNA, Nexxen’s robust capabilities span discovery, planning, activation, monetization, measurement and optimization – available individually or in combination – all designed to enable our partners to achieve their goals, no matter how far-reaching or hyper niche they may be. Nexxen is headquartered in Israel and maintains offices throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia-Pacific, and is traded on the London Stock Exchange (AIM: NEXN) and NASDAQ (NEXN). For more information, visit www.nexxen.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements, including forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “can,” “will,” “estimates,” and other similar expressions. However, these words are not the only way Nexxen identifies forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements regarding the Nexxen and Nexxen U and any benefits or insights associated with Nexxen U as well as any benefits associated with any of Nexxen’s products and platforms including the Nexxen Marketplaces, Discovery Tool, cross-screen measurement tools, Data Platform and CTV offering. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause Nexxen’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from its expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: negative global economic conditions; global conflicts and war, including the current terrorist attacks by Hamas, and the war and hostilities between Israel and Hamas and Israel and Hezbollah, and how those conditions may adversely impact Nexxen’s business, customers, and the markets in which Nexxen competes. Nexxen cautions you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of these factors, and other factors that could cause actual results to vary materially, interested parties should review the risk factors listed in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov) on March 6, 2024. Any forward-looking statements made by Nexxen in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release, and Nexxen does not intend to update these forward-looking statements after the date of this press release, except as required by law. Read Next Connect With Us Learn how you can effectively and meaningfully leverage today’s video and CTV opportunities with our end-to-end platform, data and insights. Contact Us
Innovating at Scale – Practices from Within Nexxen Engineering (Part 2)
At Nexxen, the stability of our platform is core to our engineering team’s mission, ensuring that our customers have a seamless experience while we continue to innovate at a fast pace. To achieve this, we rely on our ability to make small, incremental changes, push them to our production systems quickly, and immediately see the impact those changes have on the overall health of our platform. In my previous post, we discussed why and how we test in production. In this article, we’ll dive into our observability platform and our culture of ownership. Observability-Driven Development In a highly concurrent, low-latency system like Nexxen’s, validating a change requires us to examine the production environment holistically. This is where our observability platform, Atlas, comes into play. Atlas is an internally white-labeled, self-hosted Grafana LGTM stack maintained by our infrastructure team. It provides us with real-time visibility into the health and performance of our production systems, enabling us to quickly detect and diagnose issues. With Atlas, every engineer has access to a wealth of telemetry data, including metrics, logs, and traces, which they can use to gain insights into how their changes are affecting the system. At Nexxen, some of the first questions we ask when developing a new feature or making changes to our system are: How will we know if this change is working as intended when it’s released to production? How will we be alerted if the change is not performing as expected? These questions are at the heart of our observability-driven development approach. By defining clear metrics upfront and ensuring that we have the necessary telemetry in place to track those metrics, we can quickly assess the impact of our changes once they’re deployed to production. This proactive approach to observability helps us catch potential setbacks early to avoid negative impacts on our customers. Observability-driven development not only helps us identify and resolve issues more efficiently, but also enables us to continuously optimize our systems. By analyzing the telemetry data collected by Atlas, we can identify performance bottlenecks, resource inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement. We proactively make optimizations and architectural changes that enhance the overall reliability and scalability of our platform. A Culture of Ownership Perhaps most importantly, Nexxen has a culture of ownership where every engineer is given the knowledge, tools, responsibility, and trust they need to own their work end-to-end. We all know how our systems work, and nothing is “thrown over the wall” for another team to run or monitor in production. To support this mindset, we have invested heavily in production-related tooling and practices. Engineers are encouraged to actively engage with production systems daily, as that is where our users interact with our code and infrastructure. We have built robust guardrails and safety nets that enable us to confidently make changes. By fostering a culture of trust, ownership, and continuous improvement, we are able to deliver exceptional value to our customers while maintaining a stable and reliable platform. Conclusion At Nexxen, we pride ourselves on our platform’s stability and our ability to continue to improve our technology while we grow. Through realistic testing in production environments, how we track success metrics and analyze our performance data, and fostering a culture of ownership throughout our engineering teams, Nexxen’s platform delivers both innovation and stability. Read Next
Nexxen Launches Nexxen U, a First-of-its-Kind Education Program for Linear, Connected TV and Digital Convergence
Linkedin Icon-xtwitterlogo-black Courses taught by programmatic experts from KINESSO, LG Ad Solutions, Tinuiti, Philo and H/L, among others The program’s Honors Council brings together rising industry thought leaders for collaboration and value creation across the supply chain New York, January 6, 2025 – Nexxen, a global, flexible advertising technology platform with deep expertise in data and advanced TV, today announced the launch of Nexxen U, a first-of-its-kind, global education program for linear, Connected TV (“CTV”) and digital convergence, taught by buy- and sell-side industry experts from KINESSO, LG Ad Solutions, Tinuiti, Philo and H/L, among others. An additional component of the program is an Honors Council comprised of rising industry thought leaders spanning agencies, brands, publishers, platforms and broadcasters including KINESSO, Tinuiti, Assembly, Philo and H/L. The council aims to forge cross-marketplace connections and shape Nexxen’s product roadmap to create unique value for clients throughout the company’s end-to-end platform. In 2024, Nexxen surveyed CTV and digital buyers and found that, despite being increasingly tasked with planning programmatic holistically across linear, CTV and digital, 56% of buyers feel they have little-to-no knowledge of the programmatic linear component, inclusive of addressable and data-driven linear. Only 37% feel “very comfortable” in putting together a programmatic linear, CTV and digital video plan. Strikingly, 48% say they are able to devote only one hour or less a week to learning. Nexxen U’s designed outcomes for students range from a confident ability in building cross-channel media plans that address identity, media waste and measurement challenges to an intermediate-level understanding of the industry’s current state, including challenges, opportunities and solutions for advertisers, as well as the sell-side perspective. The courses are complemented by exclusive research reports, playbooks, SME interviews and webinars. “Finding the right resources to learn about converged linear, streaming and digital is as fragmented as the media space itself. With so many of our buyers focused on linear and CTV, we saw the opportunity to build an accessible, centralized digital destination that empowers buyers to master converged media for their campaigns,” said Kara Puccinelli, Chief Customer Officer, Nexxen. “Holistic campaigns are critical for scalable, audience-centric reach customized to viewer behavior, but this comes with inherent complexities,” said Peter Parisi, VP of Addressable Strategy & Activation, KINESSO. “KINESSO is committed to simplifying and unifying our clients’ media, data and measurement — and having an education-focused partner like Nexxen enables us to do just that while moving the industry forward.” About Nexxen Nexxen empowers advertisers, agencies, publishers and broadcasters around the world to utilize data and advanced TV in the ways that are most meaningful to them. Our flexible and unified technology stack comprises a demand-side platform (“DSP”) and supply-side platform (“SSP”), with the Nexxen Data Platform at its core. With streaming in our DNA, Nexxen’s robust capabilities span discovery, planning, activation, monetization, measurement and optimization – available individually or in combination – all designed to enable our partners to achieve their goals, no matter how far-reaching or hyper niche they may be. Nexxen is headquartered in Israel and maintains offices throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia-Pacific, and is traded on the London Stock Exchange (AIM: NEXN) and NASDAQ (NEXN). For more information, visit www.nexxen.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements, including forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “can,” “will,” “estimates,” and other similar expressions. However, these words are not the only way Nexxen identifies forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements regarding the Nexxen and Nexxen U and any benefits or insights associated with Nexxen U as well as any benefits associated with any of Nexxen’s products and platforms including the Nexxen Marketplaces, Discovery Tool, cross-screen measurement tools, Data Platform and CTV offering. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause Nexxen’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from its expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: negative global economic conditions; global conflicts and war, including the current terrorist attacks by Hamas, and the war and hostilities between Israel and Hamas and Israel and Hezbollah, and how those conditions may adversely impact Nexxen’s business, customers, and the markets in which Nexxen competes. Nexxen cautions you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of these factors, and other factors that could cause actual results to vary materially, interested parties should review the risk factors listed in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov) on March 6, 2024. Any forward-looking statements made by Nexxen in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release, and Nexxen does not intend to update these forward-looking statements after the date of this press release, except as required by law. Read Next Connect With Us Learn how you can effectively and meaningfully leverage today’s video and CTV opportunities with our end-to-end platform, data and insights. Contact Us
Innovating at Scale – Practices from Within Nexxen Engineering (Part 1)
At Nexxen, the stability of our platform is core to our engineering team’s mission, ensuring that our customers have a seamless experience while we continue to innovate at a fast pace. To achieve this, we rely on our ability to make incremental changes, push them to our production systems quickly, and immediately see the impact those changes have on the overall health of our platform. I will highlight a few practices the Nexxen engineering team uses to innovate quickly at scale, while minimizing change risk, and keeping our production systems stable. Specifically in this article, we’ll discuss why and how we test in production rather than stage environments. Testing in Production When done with the right safeguards and observability in place, testing in production enables engineers to gain immediate confidence in their changes and ship quicker than otherwise possible. It is also, arguably, safer than traditional “staging environment” testing, which doesn’t capture the full complexity of real-world conditions, making it less reliable as a predictor of production readiness. While staging environments serve a purpose, they are often unable to fully mimic the complexity of live systems, especially at scale. No amount of preparation and testing in a development or staging environment is the same as running your code on a production machine. The hardware is not the same, the network is not the same, the data is not the same, nor are the patterns and behaviors of interactions between different system components. At Nexxen, we shorten the feedback loop and test directly in production through canary deployments, leveraging the power of Kubernetes to make this process seamless. Canary deployments involve rolling out changes to one or two production servers, limiting exposure to a small percentage of traffic, and closely monitoring the performance and behavior of the canaries before releasing the changes more broadly. Operating at scale both enables and requires us to do this. For example, Nexxen’s DSP serves millions of requests per second across four datacenters, with an average latency under 80 milliseconds. This, of course, requires a substantial amount of hardware. We’re able to target a subset to test new changes, but also requires a substantial amount of precision – just a small increase in garbage collection time or ten milliseconds of additional latency could be detrimental to overall system performance. Testing anywhere but production doesn’t inspire confidence. We still follow thorough SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) procedures, such as passing unit and integration tests, undergoing code reviews, utilizing feature flags to manage new functionality, and proper approvals before any change is applied to production. However, Nexxen has invested heavily in modernizing our CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that we can rapidly and safely deploy, as well as roll back changes across every part of our production system. This modernization enables us to deliver features faster without compromising the stability of our platform. Testing in production is the ultimate quality control checkpoint, ensuring that our changes work as intended in the real-world environment where they will ultimately run. In the next article, we’ll explain further by exploring our observability platform and our culture of ownership. Read Next
Life at Nexxen with Erin Frey
For the latest edition in the series, we talked with Erin Frey, a Senior Account Executive based out of our Chicago office. Erin shares advice for building relationships in sales, how to deal with setbacks, and her current favorite restaurants in Chicago.
Nexxen Taps Carine Spitz to Lead Sales and Client Services for the West Coast
Nexxen announced significant growth in CTV revenue across EMEA, as well as the enhancement of its business development and regional sales teams in the U.K.