Beyond the console: Xbox maps the gaming ad ecosystem. Xbox Media Solutions marketing leader Claire Nance on redefining the relationship between brands and the 3.6 billion-strong gaming community. 7 hours ago The future of brands gets decided here. Join the industry's top marketers at Brandweek for the ideas, insights, and connections shaping what's next. Get your ticket. The perception of gaming as a niche hobby is rapidly fading as it transforms into a dominant force in global culture and connection. In this episode of The Speed of Culture podcast, Matt Britton welcomes Claire Nance, senior director of marketing communications at Microsoft's Xbox Media Solutions. Claire highlights the staggering reality of billions of active participants and the technological advancements that have turned every smartphone into a high-powered gaming device. This conversation reveals why immersion is the ultimate superpower for brands looking to build authentic relationships with an audience that is already deeply engaged. Claire provides a look at how Xbox is leading this transition by prioritizing the player experience above all else. The discussion focuses on the global reach of 3.6 billion gamers, the role of mobile gaming in providing universal access, and why the industry must move past outdated stereotypes to understand the modern gaming audience. Claire also shares her philosophy on player-first advertising and her non-linear career path that led her into one of the most immersive sectors of entertainment. About its guest: Claire Nance serves as the Senior Director of Marketing Communications at Microsoft's Xbox Media Solutions. She oversees B2B marketing communications for the gaming advertising business, focusing on educating brands about the power of gaming for modern entertainment and connection. Claire joined Activision Blizzard as one of the first marketing communications hires for their early stage ads business, helping to build the team and strategy from the ground up before the company was acquired by Microsoft. Her career history includes roles in television, media, and advertising at agencies like IPG, reflecting a non-linear path that eventually led her to the gaming industry. Today, she leads the storytelling for a portfolio that includes iconic titles like Candy Crush and Call of Duty across mobile, PC, and console platforms. Key takeaways: [00:03:50] The Scale and Ubiquity of the Global Gaming Community - The sheer number of people engaging with games globally has reached a point where it is impossible for marketers to overlook. With 3.6 billion gamers worldwide and roughly 80 percent of people in the United States playing in some capacity, the medium has become a primary channel for social connection. Many participants do not even identify as gamers because the activity has become such a seamless part of their daily lives through mobile devices. This section highlights how the industry has moved beyond the living room console to become a ubiquitous part of modern culture. [00:09:25] - A Philosophy of Player First Brand Experiences - Maintaining the integrity of the gaming environment is the highest priority when introducing brand messages into the ecosystem. The strategy centers on creating value exchanges, such as rewarded video or playable ad experiences, that happen during natural breaks in play. Because the developers are protective of the user experience, only high-quality and non-disruptive integrations make it into the final product. This approach ensures that brands are additive to the entertainment rather than an interruption that players want to skip. [00:11:53] Navigating the Complex Gaming Ecosystem via the Simple Rubric - Understanding where to start in gaming can be daunting for brands due to the variety of platforms and genres available. A helpful framework for simplifying this complexity involves looking at opportunities that are in the game, adjacent to the game, or outside of the game. Whether it is intrinsic billboards within a racing title or connecting with communities through esports and streaming, each entry point serves a different objective. Success in this space comes from returning to first principles and knowing exactly which audience a brand needs to reach. [00:15:32] Educating the Market and Breaking Cultural Stereotypes - A significant portion of the work involves dismantling the outdated image of the teenage gamer in a basement. The modern gaming audience is diverse, spans all age groups, and is more engaged than viewers on almost any other platform. Immersion is the key differentiator, as players are fully focused on the task at hand rather than second-screening. This provides a unique opportunity for brands to be part of a seamless environment where attention is already guaranteed. [00:17:40] - Navigating a Non-Linear Path to Success - Professional journeys in the modern era rarely follow a straight line from point A to point B. Claire reflects on how her experience in traditional media and advertising agencies provided the foundation needed to thrive in the gaming sector. The industry offers a vast array of roles beyond engineering and development, from marketing to human resources, many of which are still being invented as technology evolves. Staying curious and being crystal clear on the benefit of every action is the best way to make progress in such a fast-paced environment. Matt Britton is America's leading expert on the millennial generation having consulted for over half of the Fortune 500 over the past two decades. He is the Founder and CEO of Suzy and the host of The Speed of Culture Podcast. Recommended videos

Bravo six, going Hollywood: the Call of Duty movie is diving into the Modern Warfare universe. Gungho cowboy. 24 Jul 2026 Hollywood has spent the best part of a decade trying to turn Call of Duty into a film franchise, and it has taken roughly as many attempts as it does to actually finish the campaign on Veteran difficulty. Paramount Pictures and Activision have now confirmed that the live-action Call of Duty film will be written and directed by Peter Berg as reported by Deadline, with Taylor Sheridan co-writing the script, and that it is set for release on 30 June 2028. After years of false starts, the franchise that taught a generation to camp in doorways is finally getting one of its own, on the silver screen. It is worth remembering that Activision has been here before. Back in 2015, Activision Blizzard Studios announced a full cinematic universe built around Call of Duty, with Italian director Stefano Sollima attached to helm the first instalment and a sequel script commissioned from Joe Robert Cole in 2018. By February 2020, Sollima had confirmed the project was no longer a priority, and the whole enterprise quietly disappeared, rather like a Care Package landing in the one spot nobody can reach, according to the Call of Duty Wiki's account of the film's history. This time, the pairing looks considerably more serious. Deadline broke the news in October 2025 that Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone and writer of Hell or High Water, would team up with Berg, director of Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon, to co-write the script, with Berg directing and Sheridan producing alongside 101 Studios' David Glasser. Between Sheridan's gift for grim family dysfunction and Berg's fondness for blowing things up with real conviction, it is hard to imagine a duo better equipped to survive a Call of Duty press junket, let alone write the film itself. Paramount made the project official at CinemaCon in April 2026, screening a sizzle reel built largely from in-game footage and set, rather fittingly, to The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army", a tune that has been blaring out of football stadiums and Warzone lobbies alike for two decades. Producer Rob Kostich told the crowd that he and Berg were only prepared to make the film with the backing of the right studio leadership, having found that in Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison, while Berg added in a taped message that he and Sheridan felt "deeply connected to the special ops community" and wanted to bring both authenticity and scale to the project, as reported by Deadline and GeekTyrant. The one question hanging over the whole affair was which slice of the sprawling Call of Duty back catalogue would make it to cinemas. Activision had previously surveyed fans on whether they wanted Black Ops, Zombies, or something else entirely, according to GameSpot. That question has now been answered: Variety reports that Sheridan's Call of Duty film will be set in the Modern Warfare universe, following earlier reporting that the story would adopt a modern setting, with insider Daniel Richtman even floating Mark Wahlberg as a possible lead, per a report picked up by Yahoo Entertainment. It is a sensible choice commercially, given the sub-series is the one even your nan has vaguely heard of, and the timing is neat too, arriving just as Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 4 prepares to launch in October 2026 with its own Captain Price storyline running through a Korean Peninsula conflict, as detailed on the official Call of Duty blog. Setting the film in the Modern Warfare universe means the door is open, at least in theory, for Task Force 141: Captain John Price of the SAS, John "Soap" MacTavish, and the endlessly memeable, balaclava-clad Simon "Ghost" Riley, a character whose skull mask has arguably sold more Halloween costumes than the film industry has sold cinema tickets in recent years. No casting has been confirmed, plot details remain firmly under wraps, and production is not expected to begin until early 2027, so anyone hoping to see a first-look image of Price's moustache will need to keep waiting. The film also will not have the genre to itself. Michael B. Jordan and Christopher McQuarrie are separately developing a Battlefield movie, giving military shooters their own mini arms race at the multiplex, as noted by Collider. Video game adaptations remain a mixed bag at the box office, though Paramount's own Sonic the Hedgehog franchise proved the format can work when handled with care, which is presumably the pep talk Sheridan and Berg are giving each other on difficult days. None of this happens in a vacuum for the community that has quietly turned Modern Warfare's arsenal into a real-world hobby. Airsoft players have spent years replicating the game's loadouts down to the last rail attachment, with fans filmed recreating the Gunfight multiplayer mode shot-for-shot on real airsoft courts, while retailers such as Gunfire note that plenty of players picked up a replica rifle for the first time purely because of what they had seen on screen in a Call of Duty campaign. Popular Airsoft have spent years cataloguing fan-made short films and replica builds directly inspired by Modern Warfare's Task Force 141. A big-budget film with genuine stunt work and gunfights choreographed for the cinema, rather than a controller, seems likely to send another wave of newly enthusiastic "operators" down to their local airsoft site, kitted out in more plate carriers than tactical sense. For now, Call of Duty fans have a release date, a director and writer with serious pedigree, and confirmation that the film will live in the Modern Warfare world rather than, say, the zombie-infested corners of the franchise. What they do not have yet is a cast, a trailer, or any real sense of plot, so treat every rumour between now and 2028 with the same scepticism you would apply to a teammate insisting they definitely heard footsteps. Two years is a long time in this franchise's world, and if the games are any guide, at least one map will get reworked before release.