When Rivals Become Partners

Client: UKTV

This campaign entry outlines how Arena Media helped UKTV overcome major challenges in driving growth for its streaming platform, U. Despite low category share and limited budgets, the core issue wasn’t trial but retention: 85% of U’s audience were light or lapsed users, and the streaming landscape lacked effective cross‑device targeting and attribution tools. Arena identified two critical tasks—pinpointing high‑propensity audiences across CTV and mobile, and building an approach that could optimise toward real user attention.

Using Havas’ Converged.AI, Arena uncovered the greatest opportunity in re‑engaging lapsed users and upselling light ones. They partnered with Lumen to optimise media based on attention signals, ensuring spend only reached viewers most likely to respond. Yet measurement gaps persisted. To solve this, Arena orchestrated a pioneering collaboration between two traditionally competing partners, MiQ and Blis, unifying their data and capabilities for the first time. The UK was segmented into usage‑based geolocations, split into reciprocal test and control groups using Smart Holdouts, allowing both partners to measure each other’s activity across CTV and mobile. This holistic, cookie‑less, cross‑supplier attribution model provided a faster and more accurate feedback loop than traditional methods. Attention‑optimised regions produced a modest +2% increase in view time but delivered disproportionate commercial impact, exceeding UKTV’s 2025 growth targets. The campaign achieved standout results, including a 95% uplift in lapsed users, 28% uplift in monetisable views, 36% growth in mobile app usage, and notable linear TV gains—proving that precision, collaboration, and attention‑led optimisation can outperform spend.