"For The Celebrity Traitors, our approach was to start with a high-impact launch and then stay agile as the series unfolded episode by episode, keeping pace with how audiences were reacting and talking about the show in real time. A key focus was making sure we were showing up in the environments people were already engaging with – particularly around entertainment and celebrity content. GumGum supported this by helping us place our creative in relevant spaces at the right moments, extending our broader strategy of staying close to the cultural conversation and maintaining momentum as the series built."
now on iPlayer in YOY growth
vs The Traitors Season 3 finale
vs. GumGum benchmarks
Mobile Skin units
The first series of the BBC’s The Celebrity Traitors quickly became a cultural moment, building on the success of previous civilian series and continuing to grow its audience year over year. With each series raising the bar, this latest launch presented an opportunity to drive incremental growth, capturing new viewers while sustaining momentum among an already highly engaged fanbase.
Audiences followed every twist, betrayal, and social moment as they unfolded, with viewing and conversation happening in parallel across platforms. The real momentum came from how audiences engaged with the show in real time and how that conversation evolved with each new episode.
The BBC, in partnership with its agency Havas, set out to capitalise on this energy by reaching fans when anticipation, emotion, and social chatter were at their peak, ensuring that media aligned with the evolving mindset of viewers as the series progressed.
GumGum partnered with the BBC to build a mindset-led strategy rooted in continuous learning and optimisation to drive better results. Using GumGum’s Mindset Graph™, the campaign brought together signals such as content, engagement, and behaviour to understand what viewers were most receptive to in each moment.
Rather than relying on a single signal or static targeting, this approach helped identify when audiences were most open to the campaign message and prioritise those high-value moments. This ensured media aligned not just with what people were viewing, but how they were engaging and feeling as the series unfolded.
The campaign continued to evolve in step with the series, using mindset insights and celebrity fandom shifts to inform optimisation over time and maximise attention during key moments of engagement.
The campaign began with a pre-campaign mindset analysis to identify initial contextual and audience segments most aligned with audiences who are fans of The Celebrity Traitors as well as other celebrity content. Early signals pointed to strong affinities across entertainment, television, and pop culture environments.
Two weeks into the campaign, as new episodes aired and narratives emerged, GumGum analysed trending content around key personalities on the show. This allowed the BBC to meet viewers in the moment, aligning media with the emotions, opinions, and conversations driven by what had unfolded so far.
Later, analysis shifted toward content trending around the show itself, uncovering high attention opportunities tied to active viewing behaviour. Ahead of the finale, mindset insights and performance signals were again used to refine targeting, prioritising environments proven to deliver the strongest attention.
Mindset Graph™ analysis revealed particularly strong attention across grocery shopping, desserts and baking, entertainment, television, celebrity gossip, and travel content. Food and drink contexts stood out, with fans showing a 130x stronger connection than average contextual alignments, reflecting how viewers planned snacks and meals around key viewing moments.
Creative performance reinforced these insights. Using GumGum’s Creative Attention Tracker (CAT), Hang Time units featuring recognisable celebrity faces consistently drove higher engagement. Creative executions spotlighting key celebrities in the weeks that they were most impactful in the show’s newest episodes held attention especially well.
By combining BBC’s cultural momentum with ongoing mindset alignment and weekly creative refreshes, the campaign stayed tightly connected to how audiences were experiencing the show in real time, helping to sustain and grow viewership across the series as momentum built toward the finale. This success was further reflected in the show’s broader cultural impact, with The Celebrity Traitors going on to win Best Reality Programme and the Memorable Moment award at the TV BAFTAs, while also becoming the most-watched programme of the year. Growth was reflected across platforms, with iPlayer continuing to account for a growing share of total viewing.
Creative variations ran in short bursts and were updated weekly to reflect shifting narratives, emerging personalities, and growing anticipation. Early in the series, launch creative capitalised on initial buzz, driving the strongest immediate attention at scroll-in. As the season progressed, later executions built engagement more gradually, sustaining interest deeper into the ad experience as storylines intensified and fan investment grew.
By pairing evolving creative with continuous optimisation through the Mindset Graph™, evaluating multiple signals in real time to prioritise the moments where viewers are most receptive, the campaign didn’t just align with context, it aligned with conversation. The result was sustained, high-impact attention throughout the series, reaching viewers in the moments they were most emotionally engaged and contributing to continued audience growth through to the finale.
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