Brands In Play

[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” com...

[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, a...

[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-saturate...

[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 st...

[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...

[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...

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...

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 wor...

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 h...

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...

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...

Back from RDC with the stories you can’t miss. In episode 31 of Brands In Play, Nic and Albane discuss what stood out in the room. DevEx rates finally shifted, Roblox’s engine upgrades edging toward AAA, the Kodansha licensing deal, native avatar makeup, and “Moments,” the new in-game social feed that could redefine discovery.  Albane puts Moments under the microscope with a sharp real-time review...

In Episode 30 of Brands In Play Colton Dunn pulls no punches. The Superstore star and longtime gamer joins Nic Hill and Albane Prioux to swap stories from Halo nights to Ninja Turtle skins, and to share his take on how brands fit, or don’t in the games we play. This week’s news spans Balenciaga’s return to Fortnite, Activision turning to Giphy for Call of Duty, “Steal a Brain Rot” breaking records...

Albane Prioux is on vacation this week, so Lee Kebler (TechMagic Podcast) jumps in as co-host to join Nic Hill on Episode 29 of Brands In Play. At the heart of the show is Alex Wechsler, Head of Studios at 100 Thieves. Alex lays out how 100 Thieves went from “just another esports org” to a cultural brand that moves like Supreme but competes like the Lakers. He talks candidly about the esports bubb...

McDonaldland is so back! This time inside Fortnite, as part of a global campaign spanning TV, influencers, and immersive worlds. On Episode 28 of Brands In Play, we’re joined by Ryan Norrington, Creative Director at Metavision, to talk about what it takes to bring a campaign of this scale into Fortnite and why the platform was the right fit for McDonald’s. We also dive into the week’s news with La...

Episode 27 of Brands In Play, Albane Prioux sits down with Annette Lee, Head of Global Business Development at Zepeto, to unpack how the platform’s avatar-first model has created a global audience that’s majority Gen Z female. Annette breaks down the four creator types driving the economy and how each opens up a different path for brand activations.  She explains why Hyundai, a car brand, has unex...

What are the key strategies for successful media buying in gaming? This week on Brands In Play, Albane Prioux and Nic Hill are joined by Claire Nance from Activision Blizzard Media to talk about what makes an ad campaign effective inside games. We’ll explore how to build campaigns that players actually love, focusing on mobile's unique challenges and opportunities. We also dive into a bunch o...

We’ve teamed up with the Kids Media Club podcast to explore one of the strangest and most viral trends in UGC culture: Italian Brain Rot. Together with Jo, Emily, and Andy, we unpack how a chaotic wave of AI-generated characters and in-jokes became a cultural flashpoint across Roblox and Fortnite, sparking games, fandoms, and serious revenue.  In the news:  – Bob Ross quietly makes his Fortnite de...

Charles Hambro built GEEIQ before Meta even had the name. In this episode, he joins us to talk about what brand success in virtual worlds actually looks like, why Roblox shouldn’t be treated as an “innovation play” anymore, and how campaign-based activations are overtaking persistent worlds. It’s the kind of conversation that is data-backed, no fluff, and long overdue. We also talk about Fortnite&...

What platforms make sense for your brand? In this special deep dive episode of Brands In Play, Nic Hill (Sawhorse) and Albane Prioux (GEEIQ) answer the top questions brands keep asking about gaming, virtual worlds, and virtual identity. On this episode they explore the challenges brands are facing with fragmented audiences in gaming and provide insights on how brands can best plan their strategy t...

This week, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux are joined by Joe Pace, VP of ASICS Ventures, to unpack how the legacy fitness brand is building an entirely new virtual sport, from scratch. DISC is now live on MetaQuest, and it's not a one-off campaign, it’s a long-term strategy rooted in movement, community, and real brand equity. We explore what it means to build a branded game with long-term goals:...

In episode 21 of Brands In Play Albane Prioux & Nic Hill put the spotlight on Nate Spell, founder and CEO of Barrier Four. His team rebuilt the entire Squid Game Season 3 recap video inside Roblox shot-for-shot. Every dorm bunk, every merry-go-round frame, every contestant mask, using the platform’s own animation tools. Nate explains why they insist on filming inside the engine, how DevCam and...

In episode 20 of Brands In Play, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux sit down with Gino Roy, Art Director at Sawhorse. He’s behind the visual direction of some of the best-looking branded games on Roblox like Beetlejuice, Wicked, Kung Fu Panda, Tommy Play, and most recently, How to Train Your Dragon. But this conversation goes deeper than art. We get into how to make cinematic worlds that actually run well...

On Episode 19 of Brands In Play, Albane Prioux and Nic Hill speak with Uri Marchand, CEO of Overwolf, discussing how his company serving 100M+ monthly users is being leveraged by brands to engage with notoriously hard-to-reach gaming communities. Founded in 2010, Overwolf's mission is to empower creativity in gaming and help in-game creators make the best games even better through user-genera...

This week, Nic Hill and Albane Prioux take us to AWE 2025, where Nic hosts a live panel about marketing with augmented reality, joined by three standout voices shaping the spatial future: 🔸 Raag Harshavat, AR Developer Relations at Snapchat. Raag works at the intersection of AR technology and creative enablement at Snapchat, helping developers and brands bring their AR ideas to life through Snap’...