HAVAS PLAY LAUNCHES INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING WITH IION PARTNERSHIP

Havas Play has partnered with gaming advertising platform iion to launch Havas Play:able, a new offering across ANZ and APAC that enables brands to create interactive, playable ads. Combining cultural expertise with iion’s technology, the partnership aims to transform advertising into immersive experiences that encourage active audience participation.

Havas Play, the culture-first agency network specialising in sport, entertainment, gaming and fandom, has announced a partnership with gaming advertising platform iion to deliver a new era of interactive advertising across ANZ and APAC. The collaboration introduces Havas Play:able, a solution designed to help brands rapidly create and deploy playable and mini-game experiences across gaming, digital and social environments.  

The partnership makes iion the exclusive technology partner for Havas Play in the region, integrating its Playable Creator Studio into the agency’s offering. By combining Havas Play’s cultural and entertainment expertise with iion’s technology, the initiative aims to move advertising beyond passive consumption, encouraging audiences to actively participate in branded experiences. The launch reflects Havas’ Deliberately Different approach, which seeks to blur the lines between content, entertainment and commerce through immersive engagement.  

Through iion’s Playable Creator Studio, Havas Play will be able to generate bespoke, pitch-ready interactive concepts and previews before moving into production. This capability will be available across the Havas network and directly to brand clients, enabling faster creative development and deployment. Several clients are already exploring opportunities to build casual gaming experiences in retail, FMCG and beauty categories, highlighting the potential for simple, engaging formats to connect consumers with brands in everyday contexts.  

Yun Yip, Chief Commercial Officer at iion, emphasised the shift towards active engagement. “The era of passive media is over – every ad should be an invitation to play, interact, and engage, because that’s how genuine brand love is created. Havas Play fundamentally understands culture and entertainment, and together we aim to take the power of ‘play’ far beyond gaming into the broader digital and social ecosystem,” she said. “By fusing their cultural pulse with our technology, we are making every impression an active, lean-in moment that keeps brands top-of-mind while delivering measurable performance across the player’s experience.”  

Havas Play:able is designed to overcome traditional barriers to playable advertising, which often involve high upfront costs and lengthy development cycles. By using agentic technology and AI automation alongside human creative strategy, the platform can rapidly produce interactive previews, allowing brands to test concepts without committing to full-scale production. Once developed, experiences can be deployed across iion’s gaming ecosystem, premium open web and social channels, with analytics available to measure audience interaction and performance.  

Nick Smith, Managing Partner of Havas Play ANZ, highlighted the mainstream appeal of gaming. “Gaming has become one of the most powerful ways for brands to earn attention, and the scale and frequency of casual gaming has made play a mainstream behaviour, not a niche activity. Micro-games give brands an opportunity to move from advertising around gaming to creating experiences that audiences actively participate in, with simple, culturally relevant experiences that people can pick up and play anywhere,” he said. “Historically, bringing that kind of experience into a brand’s everyday content and media plans has been difficult, expensive and slow. Havas Play:able changes that. By combining our understanding of culture with iion’s technology, we can turn an idea into a playable branded experience in days, not weeks, giving brands a new way to make their audiences active participants rather than passive viewers.”