Contagious
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Contagious was born on the back of a beer mat in a London pub in 2004. It was a time of ferment in the marketing industry. Mobile was beginning to get smart, social media was primed to explode and people’s relationships with brands were becoming a whole lot more interactive. New media and behaviours meant the audience had run ahead of the advertiser, so we figured that the communications industry needed a fresh guidance system to make sense of the immediate future.
Hence Contagious. Founders Paul Kemp-Robertson and Gee Thomson wanted to create a platform to explore alternative advertising ideas, assess the impact of emerging technologies and champion a greater sense of purpose for brands. This feeling is encapsulated in our name. Contagiousness is in the stuff that people choose to care about and feel compelled to share. It’s a spirit and a mindset that reaches beyond siloed disciplines, fusing creativity and marketing, technology, design and behaviour.
Today, Contagious offers an intelligence platform, dedicated consultancy, quarterly magazine and live events across the globe to champion brave, innovative creativity across the industry, and equip companies to achieve it for themselves. Source
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Media Outlet details
| Scope | International, Trade/B2B |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Country | United Kingdom |
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Similarweb UVM |
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Comscore UVM |
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| Frequency | Quarterly |
Recent Articles
Search ArticlesHow brands are winning in 2026: Lessons from the Contagious Brands Report
Printed on: 08 October 2026 04:49:16 What does it take to become a brand people actually want to spend time with? 08 October 2026 What does it take to become a brand people actually want to spend time with? 08 October 2026 Video URL: https://youtu.be/laPMz8kpABM?si=Y5XFLlqy1YmlH5rp 01 Feb 2016 08 May 2024 07 May 2025 17 Sep 2018 08 Apr 2020 01 Feb 2023 22 Feb 2021 12 May 2026 01 Jan 2018 19 Nov 2020 24 Sep 2026
OMHU dupes the dupes
Let the copycats do the bragging / For a premium design brand, being copied is flattering up to a point. A dupe says people want your design, but it can also make the original harder to distinguish from everything that followed it. OMHU says that confusion has gone as far as customers contacting the brand to complain about sofas it never made. Then again, being duped at this scale also carries its own status. As OMHU CMO Alexander Morabbi Wulsh puts it, ‘Getting duped is iconic.
The Chaos Advantage
Contagious is part of LIONS. LIONS is the global platform for creativity and marketing effectiveness. Helping businesses grow through intelligence, benchmarking, training and advisory services; backed by 150+ years of expertise across Cannes Lions, WARC, Effie, Contagious, Acuity Pricing, Content Marketing Institute and The Market Research Event. LIONS is part of Informa.
It’s not for you, it’s not for anyone… human
Most of us can point to an occasion when we’ve dismissed something incredibly popular as being ‘not for me’. An animated film about K-pop stars protecting the world from a demonic boyband. Not for me. An 80s-inflected series about kids uncovering a parallel dimension in the boondocks of Indiana. Not for me. A podcast with an angry bulk of testosterone confronting alpha-maxxing, conspiracies and the threat of ‘deadly’ seed oils. Definitely not for me.
Contagious Brands Report 2026
The inaugural Contagious Brands Report is a curated collection of 45 brands from across the globe that we’ve identified as some of the most creative, disruptive and innovative brands winning in 2026. Want to see everyone who’s made the cut and why? Download the report here.
Ikea challenges the UAE to a Swedish TikTok test
Printed on: 28 September 2026 10:54:25 Furniture giant turns its product names into pronunciation game for back-to-school shoppers 20 September 2026 Furniture giant turns its product names into pronunciation game for back-to-school shoppers 20 September 2026 Video URL: https://youtu.be/xKWiSE1FLcA 15 Jun 2026 04 Feb 2025 16 Jan 2026 20 Jul 2021 02 Jul 2018 18 Sep 2019 12 Oct 2021 16 Sep 2026 16 May 2023 27 Mar 2023 18 Apr 2023 17 Dec 2020
Creator marketing myths
Auto-generated transcript Hi and welcome to This is Contagious, a show where we look at how contagious ideas are shaping brands and culture. Today, Chloe is chatting to Becky Owen, the CMO of social agency Billion Dollar Boy.
Runway turns AI filmmaking into a game of HORSE
Printed on: 22 September 2026 11:01:11 Filmmakers go shot for shot in competitive showcase of the AI video platform’s generative tools 13 September 2026 Filmmakers go shot for shot in competitive showcase of the AI video platform’s generative tools 13 September 2026 Video URL: https://youtu.be/HJFTQ1F_jqA Winners were later shared in a post: ‘We played HORSE and you showed up. We were blown away by the response.
Insight & Strategy: It Always Will Be Foot Locker
How an athletic footwear and apparel retailer tapped nostalgia, decades of sneaker history and its in-store Stripers to reinforce its place in sneaker culture
The Warhol lures visitors with the power of suggestion
Printed on: 14 September 2026 10:42:26 Museum evokes Warhol’s famous works with artfully spare text-only ads 08 September 2026 Museum evokes Warhol’s famous works with artfully spare text-only ads 08 September 2026 Video URL: https://youtu.be/WSCh_9iwTPQ The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, has launched See It at The Warhol, a minimalist out-of-home and digital campaign that advertises Warhol’s work without showing the art itself.