The ITV Palooza returned in person on Tuesday, filling up the Royal Festival Hall and the “blue” carpet for our biggest event of the year!
We had our biggest attendance to date this year and a show filled with amazing artists, announcements and previews. Joel Dommett and Vick Hope presented a magnificent night for all of our valued customers, talent, producers, commissioners, investors and press, transporting them into the magic of TV.
We’ve got lots of exciting new shows coming up in the next year on ITV such as The Ipcress File starring Tom Hollander and Joe Cole, Litvinenko starring David Tennant and Nolly starring Helena Bonham-Carter. We also have brand new entertainment shows such as Starstruck with a stellar judging panel that includes Adam Lambert and Sheridan Smith and the Real Games which will be hosted by Holly Willoughby and Freddie Flintoff to look forward to.
Kelly Williams and Simon Daglish shared commercial opportunities with customers, including the exciting free to air sport coming up in 2022 including the Qatar World Cup, Rugby and Women’s Football World Cup. The FA Cup will, for the first time since 1997, be entirely free for viewers to watch. These events and other opportunities appear on our new digital AB Calendar, so clients will never miss the opportunity to advertise around key moments.
The sporting segment was brought to a powerful close by an emotive performance from the legendary Guvna B about how sport is such a great example of ITV’s superpower: the unique way it brings the nation together through joy and pain, the highs and lows… the sheer drama has the ability to get the nation talking.
This performance reinforced ITV’s commercial’s theme of Better Together, a new behaviour and a way forward. This was rooted in the biggest piece of customer research ITV has conducted in over ten years. The messaging continues into all areas such as the incorporation of multiple advertising partners into one show, demonstrated by This Morning where multiple brands partner with specific editorial strands.
The success of ITV’s partnership with M&S that was first announced three years ago was also celebrated. The jointly developed ad-funded show called ‘Cooking with the Stars’ involved celebrities' cook-off against each other whilst only using M&S ingredients. As Daglish said: “This is not just advertising… this is ITV advertising”.
Planet V, which was only launched a year ago, was another celebratory moment of the night because it is now being used by 201 agency buying points. Now, in any given month, more than 90% of ITV's digital inventory is booked through this platform. Furthermore, in October last year, ITV had no programmatic presence. 12 months later, ITV now own and operate the 2nd largest programmatic video platform in the UK.
The launch of ITV AdLabs was also a highlight. This is the new home for all of ITV’s innovation. It’s focused on testing and learning across three key areas: new digital products, digital partnerships and strategic insight. An example of this is ITV’s partnership with Cablato, who can now change and rewrite the end frames of ads, in real-time, depending on criteria such as postcode, region, life stage or time of day. As well as ITV’s partnership with Tomorrow.io which enables targeting in real time by weather. ITV also showcased its new venture into gaming, launching I’m a Celebrity with John Lewis in Fortnite, targeting a younger audience.
CEO Carolyn McCall announced a range of measures following COP26 as part of ITV’s commitment to becoming a net-zero carbon business by 2030. These commitments include ensuring all programmes produced and commissioned by ITV from 2021 onwards will go through sustainable certification.
Thank you to everyone who came to the 2021 ITV Palooza, and to everyone who helped make this event possible. We hope to see you next year! For now, relive the evening via our photo gallery!
