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Welcome to Brands in Play - The podcast where we explore immersive marketing and the people who are leading it.
51 Episodes
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This week on the show, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux are joined by Leslie Shepard, Lead of Partnerships and Growth Marketing at Sam’s Club. In this conversation, Leslie breaks down how Sam’s Club thinks about gaming as an upper funnel growth lever, why Roblox integrations beat building a standalone world for their goals, and what she learned by running a portfolio approach across multiple titles. In the news, Bruno Mars partners with Steal a Brainrot on Roblox, Peaky Blinders enters PUBG Mobil...
It's EPISODE 50! Before anything else, thank you to everyone who’s been listening, watching, sharing, and building with us along the way. What started as a conversation has turned into a weekly ritual, and we don’t take that for granted. Your support is the reason Brands In Play keeps showing up, digging deeper, and pushing this space forward. This week on the show, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Bastian Bergmann, Co-Founder & COO of Solsten and author of Press Play: Why Every ...
Episode 49 of Brands In Play is here and this week Nic Hill and Albane Prioux are joined by Charlie Melcher, founder of Melcher Media and The Future of Storytelling, and author of The Future of Storytelling. In the interview, Charlie breaks down the rise of “living stories", plus what this shift means for brand storytelling, experience design, and how marketers should think about impact, memory, and measurement in immersive formats. News this week: LEGO steals the spotlight at CES • R...
Brands In Play kicks off 2026 with a predictions episode. Nic Hill and Albane Prioux center the conversation around three questions brands are already grappling with: • Where people will spend time playing and socializing • Which monetization models hold up under real pressure • How creator-led economies are changing brand strategy. This week in the news, Warner Bros. leans toward Netflix over Paramount, SandboxVR scales globally, FIFA deepens its Roblox strategy and NBA star Luka Don...
This week on Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux are officially off for the holidays, so Episode 47 is a little different: we’re rebroadcasting one of our favourite podcasts, UNBOXING: Play and Profit for the Gaming Curious. Hosted by gaming-industry professors Laine Nooney and Joost van Dreunen. If you work in gaming, media, or brand marketing, this is the kind of macro context that helps everything else make sense: where players are moving, how platforms really operate, and why cert...
This week’s episode is a different one: For our final show of 2025, Albane Prioux and Nic Hill press pause on the news cycle and pull together the big ideas that shaped a year of immersive marketing on Brands In Play. No guests, no real-time review, just a recap of the sharpest moments from 45 episodes. From AR wearables moving into the mainstream (Snap Spectacles, Meta Ray-Bans) to the race between Roblox, Fortnite UEFN and Horizon to win creators and commerce, we trace how UGC platforms ma...
This week on Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Karl Stewart, SVP of Marketing & Head of the Imagine AI platform at IGN, to unpack how 30 years of gaming data is reshaping brand strategy: from Batman, Tomb Raider and Marvel to Roblox, Fortnite and Gen Alpha. In the news, Netflix moves to acquire Warner Bros. film, streaming and games business, immersive OOH billboards steal attention, Meta signs multi-year AI content licensing deals with major news publishers,...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] Episode 44 of Brands In Play Nic Hill and Albane Prioux are joined by Joe Condon, founder of SEG3, where we dig into how sports, entertainment, and gaming collide around next-gen fan experiences. Joe walks through why he built SEG3, how the conference connects IP owners, brands, and developers in the same room, and the three big trends he’s watching across UGC IP, licensing, and fandom-driven ecosystems going into 2026. In the news this week: Samsung launches its n...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play, Albane Prioux and Nic Hill unpack immersive holiday commerce in 2025. They cover everything from Target’s Alpine store makeovers and Walmart’s ambient-room shopping, to Amazon’s 3D “Beyond Rooms,” UGC gaming worlds and AI shopping assistants. We stress-test each one on whether it genuinely makes buying smarter and easier, or is it all gloss? Shop… or drop. In the news, ChatGPT Goes Shopping, Adidas Enters Minecraft, Quentin Tarantino Re...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Ron Friedman, VP of Mattel Future Lab. Ron outlines how Future Lab approaches innovation at scale: how Hot Wheels, Barbie, and Monster High are translated into digital environments without compromising brand integrity, and how data, creative instinct, collector behavior, and AI as “amplified imagination” come together inside their product strategy. In the news, Unity partners with Epic Games, Ama...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Matt Kidd and Lex Alexander from GETREKT Labs. They've carved out a rare niche, building tools, formats, mini-games, and interactive overlays that help brands show up natively inside livestream gaming culture. We unpack how they think about creator freedom, audience participation, API-driven outcomes, and what publishers are doing behind the scenes to get more value out of sponsored streams. In t...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Rick Hack, Founder of Empire House, an advisory company driving digital transformation and innovation in the Media & Ent industry. From The Meg’s VFX breakthrough to virtual production, cloud studios, autonomous vehicles, and why human-made, empathy-driven stories will become a premium in an AI-saturated world. In the news, Disneyland debuts on Fortnite • Walmart rolls out AI audio summ...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play, Albane Prioux and Nic Hill sit down with Margot Rodde, Founder & CEO of Creators Corp. We unpack the crucial split between Fortnite BR and UEFN, and why studios are going platform agnostic. Margot argues platforms must “pick a lane” (ad platform vs. creator-first game platform), and makes the case for brands to work directly with specialized studios. In the news, eMarketer flags puzzle and shooter titles as the current sweet sp...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play, we sit down with Ross Crump, founder of Ardent Social. Ross explains why “influencer” ≠ influence. From leading campaigns with the Sidemen and John Cena’s Overwatch 2 launch to founding Ardent, Ross breaks down why the real power lies in micro-communities and the creators who shape them not simply through influencers with massive followings. In the news, ad spend climbs but impact drops according to Shutterstock’s Creative Impact Report...
[NEW EPISODE ALERT] This week on Brands In Play Dentsu’s Magali Huot (SVP, Global Gaming Strategy) joins Nic Hill and Albane Prioux to unpack how one of the world’s biggest agency networks is turning its motto “innovating to impact” into action inside gaming. In the news, Walmart brings commerce to ChatGPT, WPP extends its Google AI partnership, McDonald’s revives Street Fighter II in Japan, and e.l.f. tests shoppable Twitch ads. And in our Real Time Review, Albane takes us inside Se...
This week on Brands In Play, James Reevell, New Media and Gaming Consultant (and former Executive Editor for Youth Audiences at the BBC), joins Albane Prioux and Nic Hill to discuss how broadcasters are adapting to new platforms. James also shares how the BBC brought its iconic IPs into gaming worlds and why Gen Alpha’s media habits demand new forms of storytelling. In the news, brands are making their own anime with Duolingo and Gap launching original animated content, Netflix adds a party ...
This week on Brands In Play, Albane Prioux and Nic Hill sit down with Christian Lau, Chief Technology Officer at Los Angeles Football Club. Christian takes us inside LAFC’s tech playbook, from autonomous retail and face-based ticketing for faster beer pours, to a full network overhaul ensuring fans can stream, share, and connect without friction. He also breaks down why gaming activations only work when teams commit to maintaining them and when resources truly match ambition. In the news, Fo...
On Episode 34 of Brands In Play, Nic and Albane are joined by Matt Edelman, CEO of Super League. Drawing on decades of experience at Marvel, Endeavor, and Super League’s own NASDAQ journey, Matt breaks down the rise of playable media, why brands need to understand the “state of play,” and what it will take for immersive activations to shift from experimental budgets into the core media mix. News headlines this week: Fortnite x Daft Punk • AI companies turning to traditional advertising • EA ...
This week on Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Brendan Stock, CEO and Co-Founder of Chartis, one of the top UEFN creator networks. Brendan shares how his team helps creators scale from hobbyists to professionals, why brands should think twice before building their own island, and what really makes Fortnite a premium platform for marketers. In the news, Fortnite fires back at Roblox with a huge update. Creators can now sell items directly inside their own islands (keepi...
This week Albane Prioux and Nic Hill break down the latest in immersive marketing, from Meta’s push into AI-powered smart glasses to Kai Cenat’s Fortnite takeover, Nintendo’s unexpected Virtual Boy revival, and Guinness stepping into Netflix with House of Guinness. The Real Time Review puts Crocs’ branded Roblox world under the microscope, where scavenger hunts, Jibbitz charms, and player surveys blur product marketing with gameplay. And in our Deep Dive: LEGO’s entertainment empire. From S...
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