Dentsu's Brand Reset gives CMOs the framework to defend long-term brand value in an environment where algorithms reward short-term performance. The study attaches a single video exposure to driving 1-5% incremental sales over three years across 10 next-gen video platforms¹. The argument that attention compounds is settled for video. The question that follows, particularly for under-25 audiences, is where that principle applies when the cohort isn't watching video.

Key takeaways

Brand directors have been handed channels that struggle with brand-building: paid social is fragmented with declining organic reach across platforms², and retail media remains stubbornly lower-funnel despite efforts to extend it³. The Brand Reset attention principle is the right principle and it extends beyond just video.

Persistent presence is what happens when the attention principle is applied to gaming environments where under-25s spend time voluntarily. It means showing up strategically, reliably across game worlds that match the brand. In 2025 the strategy changed materially from brands building owned worlds to integrations into existing games, with 31% of brands that had previously built owned worlds switching to integrations instead⁴. Persistent presence today is a portfolio: owned worlds where the brand needs a permanent home, integrations when it needs to borrow a popular game's audience short-term, and organic engagement where the brand's IP drives fan-made content. The mix evolves with the brand's calendar.

One-off campaign vs always-on portfolio

Netflix is operating the portfolio model in public. Thanks to Stephen Dypiangco for tracing this pattern in a recent Max Power Gaming newsletter: hub worlds hosting multiple Netflix IPs, integrations into top games and one-off custom builds, all running simultaneously rather than sequentially⁵. Netflix isn't choosing one or the other. They're matching the approach to their goal.

Last June I wrote about a third prong: Squid Game's final season launched on Roblox where eight fan-made games had already amassed 4.9 billion combined lifetime plays. That's the organic engagement with fan-made content Netflix didn't build but could benefit from. (I assume they saw it that way since they didn't get the fan games taken down).

For agencies implementing Brand Reset, the short version of the argument to extend the framework is:

The decision that follows is which platform first. A strategic media planner at a major European FMCG brand recently put it to me this way:

The platform is the consequence of the strategy, not the strategy itself.

The Integration vs Owned World strategy primer is the document LFG uses with brand teams on exactly this question. Reply to this edition and I'll send it.

Daniel O'Sullivan

LFG · [email protected]

Should brands run one gaming campaign or many? A portfolio beats one-offs. A single gaming campaign disappears when it ends; an always-on portfolio builds a presence that compounds, so you are not paying to rebuild the audience each time.

What is an always-on gaming strategy? Maintaining continuous brand presence across gaming, through multiple integrations and/or an owned world, rather than isolated campaign bursts, so the audience and mental availability accumulate.

Which brands run a portfolio strategy in gaming? Netflix is the public example, running multiple activations to keep an always-on presence rather than one-off launches.

What is dentsu's Brand Reset and how does it apply to gaming? Brand Reset is dentsu's framework for defending long-term brand value in the algorithmic era, focused on video. The same attention principle extends to gaming, where sustained presence builds brand value better than isolated campaigns.