Marketers have spent a decade optimizing for the solo scroller. But as post-pandemic leisure habits settle, consumers are choosing shared experiences again—bars, gyms and restaurants are drawing bigger crowds. That shift turns a public screen into something closer to a shared moment, and it is changing how brands can buy attention.
A new version of the right-place message
During an ADWEEK House panel co-hosted with Atmosphere TV, Zoë Ruderman, ADWEEK’s chief content officer, spoke with Blake Sabatinelli, CEO of Atmosphere TV, and Lindsay Sutton, its SVP and head of marketing. Sabatinelli said community experiences matter again and give brands a chance to reach people at “the right time, the right place, with the right message” in a way that is less disrupted and more accepted than other formats.
He said these spaces do not just deliver scale. They also carry the heightened emotion of real-time connection, especially around sports. If a consumer is already in a positive, energetic mindset, a brand can associate itself with that feeling.
Creative has to fit the room
Sutton made the case for a lighter touch. Brands should avoid work that feels intrusive or distracting to the shared experience. Her team asks one question before building: what makes sense for this moment? She described the process as a collaboration with the brand, not a one-size-fits-all slot.
Sabatinelli pointed to a financial services partner that used an interactive ad tied to runners during the Boston Marathon. The work leaned on an engineering team that sits with brands—an approach he called “out of the box.”
Beyond the duopoly habits
For many marketing teams, the bigger blind spot is planning. Sutton admitted that she had previously thought of marketing as one person moving along an individual journey, rather than as shared moments brands could plan for. Those larger shared moments often went unused.
Sabatinelli offered blunt advice for teams feeling cautious about this space: look at media ecosystems outside Meta and Google. He said those platforms have become saturated for acquisition, and at some point marketers will need another modality to reach people.
- Communal venues combine large audiences with the positive emotion of shared moments.
- Creative must be built for the room, not simply cut down from a social ad.
- Marketers need testable alternatives to Meta and Google as acquisition pressure grows.
The underlying takeaway is context-first media planning: match the message to the physical moment and the collective mood, and treat the venue as part of the creative, not just a screen.
Source: Adweek
