Consumers have become immune to interruption and increasingly resistant to noise. They now reward brands that feel genuine, human, and emotionally connected — not those that force themselves into their daily lives. Happydemics’ 2025 Brand Lift results make this shift remarkably visible in the data.
OOH & TV: Awards of the Best Performing Media in 2025
Across all campaigns measured in 2025, OOH and TV lead the impact rankings, each performing +7 points above the media benchmark.
TV: The Emotional Anchor
TV continues to excel where it has always led — emotion and memory.
Performance highlights include:
- Ad recall: +8 pts above average
- Interest: +13 pts
- Brand image: +4 pts
TV’s premium, trusted, lean-back environment strengthens storytelling effectiveness, making it a key driver of mental availability.
OOH: The Performance Engine
OOH demonstrates exceptional strength further down the funnel, confirming its position as one of 2025’s most powerful action-driving media:
- +5 pts on consideration
- +13 pts on specific purchase intent
- +8 pts on purchase intent
- +5 pts on preference
Its unmissable presence in the physical world generates credibility, memorability, and social proof — benefits increasingly difficult to replicate in saturated digital environments.
OOH delivers visibility and trust in a collective, real-world setting. Its contextual nature strengthens memorability, credibility, and emotional resonance.
DOOH: From Visibility to Full-Funnel Engagement
The digital evolution of outdoor advertising continues to accelerate — and in 2025, the uplift is striking.
Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) is now one of the fastest-rising formats in the Happydemics database, showing significant growth vs last year on the KPIs that changed the most:
- +4 pts on personal interest
- +8 pts on ad perception
- +14 pts on ad format perception
- +4 pts on specific intent
DOOH is no longer just digital signage — it has become a data-driven creative platform. Real-time triggers, contextual personalisation, and improved content relevance turn DOOH into a full-funnel medium, as confirmed by its rise in interest and perception metrics.
In-Game: The Immersive Attention Winner
Another non-intrusive format gaining ground is in-game advertising, now firmly established as an attention-efficient medium.<2025 performance highlights:
- 3rd best recalled medium overall
- +7 pts vs average of all media on attribution
Because in-game ads integrate seamlessly into gameplay environments, they capture attention without interrupting — delivering relevance and immersion where players are most engaged.
Social Media & Influence: Purchase Through Proximity
Since 2021, social and influencer media have consistently driven purchase, and 2025 further solidifies this trend. Across the board, social formats outperform the average of all other media:
- +3 pts on ad likeability
- +20 pts (!!) on ad perception
- +4 pts on consideration
- +2 pts on purchase intent
Social ads are more liked than the average of all media. They are contextual, seamlessly integrated into feeds, and often rely on authentic, creator-led content that consumers trust.
When relevance, tone, and targeting meet, advertising no longer feels like advertising.
This reinforces one of 2025’s strongest learnings:
**Non-intrusive formats — OOH, DOOH, in-game, social — dominate the impact rankings.**
CTV: Precision Meets Premium
If OOH owns the streets, Connected TV (CTV) owns the living room — and increasingly, the creative spotlight.
CTV’s presence in the market is strengthening fast. In 2025, Happydemics measured a +4-point increase in the share of CTV campaigns — the largest growth across all media.
Meanwhile, programmatic CTV investment rose by around +10% YoY in Q1 2025, reflecting its transition from “emerging” to “essential”.
CTV seamlessly blends, the emotional, premium experience of TV, the precision and accountability of digital, and a non-intrusive ad environment viewers accept.
Its performance vs the average of all media in 2025 is clear:
- +2 pts on attribution
- +2 pts on ad perception
- +2 pts on clarity
CTV offers the emotional depth of TV and the measurability of digital — a powerful combination for building relevance and strengthening brand perception.
Pairing TV’s strong perception with CTV’s targeting sophistication is emerging as a key competitive advantage for 2025 campaigns.
Authenticity: The Real KPI of 2025
Across all media types, one insight consistently stands out: authenticity is the top creative driver of performance.
Campaigns adopting a sincere, straightforward, and human tone deliver stronger results on:
- Brand familiarity
- Brand image
- Specific brand image
- Purchase intent
Consumers aren’t responding because they’re being pushed. They’re acting because they’re genuinely convinced.
They value coherence, transparency, and purpose.
Authenticity, not intrusion, drives purchases — sincerity reinforces performance across the full funnel. Authenticity is no longer a creative preference; it is a strategic necessity.
The New Equation of Impact
2025’s learnings reveal a simple but powerful formula:
- Authenticity builds emotional connection and trust.
- Attention — earned through contextual, non-intrusive formats like OOH, DOOH, in-game — drives memorability.
- Accountability ensures decisions rely on real consumer outcomes.
Together, they define what effective advertising will be about in 2026.
In Summary
For 2026, we observe in advertising a shift from exposure to experience — from reach to resonance.
- In-game and OOH anchor campaigns with powerful, non-intrusive impact.
- DOOH and CTV add intelligence, precision, and measurable engagement.
- Social and influence bring proximity, authenticity, and cultural relevance.
The brands winning today — and tomorrow — are those that manage to be:
Seen. Felt. Trusted.
