Luke Spano.
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Luke Spano, CEO, Avid Collective.
As we move into 2026, one thing feels undeniable: brands want more meaningful ways to reach people. Not more impressions. Not to create more noise. They want connection.
Audiences are tired of interruption. They’re choosing to engage more with advertising that earns their attention, not advertising that forces it. A 2025 Trade Desk study found that 73% of Australian viewers say they mentally tune out or actively block repetitive advertising. That’s why ‘engaged reach’ has become the metric that matters, the kind of reach and attention that’s chosen, consumed, remembered and shared.
The most powerful way to achieve engaged reach? Media partnerships, with their storytelling, use of talent, cultural relevance, context and creativity, immerse audiences in the creative and deliver more meaning and resonance.
Every marketer I speak to wants more partnership-led work. The appetite is there. The budgets are there. Brands know partnerships build trust, shift perceptions and drive behaviour in a way traditional spots and dots formats or programmatic buying simply can’t.
The challenge
The problem is, they are too complex to deliver.
And the challenge isn’t creative, it’s operational. Every media owner and agency has its own processes, systems and expectations, but nothing connects. Instead of creating efficiency or competitive differentiation, the fragmentation dilutes both. Time that should be spent on strategy and storytelling is instead lost to coordination overhead, email chains, spreadsheet gymnastics and constant translation.
The work isn’t blocked by demand; it’s blocked by the way we work. What should be the most exciting work becomes the hardest to execute. We don’t have a creativity problem, we have a collaboration problem.
The action we’ll see in 2026
2026 will be the year the industry comes together to make media partnerships easier to buy, sell and deliver and measure. To build shared ways of working. To remove unnecessary friction. To make collaboration feel effortless instead of exhausting.
Because when collaboration becomes easier, engaged reach becomes achievable more consistently, and premium environments become confident choices for marketers. And when we fix how we work together, everyone benefits - brands, agencies, media partners and, most importantly for the ecosystem, audiences, who finally get better experiences instead of more noise.
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