For anyone who hasn’t heard of Avid Collective, what’s the elevator pitch?

We started Avid as publishers ourselves, building and delivering direct partnerships for advertisers. We loved the work, but we constantly ran into the same problem: brilliant ideas were slowed down by clunky workflows, manual processes, endless spreadsheets and emails. Compared to other digital channels, it was harder than it needed to be for advertisers to run direct partnerships, which limited growth and scale.

That experience is what led us to build PubSuite – technology designed to make collaboration simpler and faster for agencies and publishers. Our technology makes it much easier for agencies to discover, brief, and run campaigns with publishers and help grow investment into the channel.

You co-founded Avid Collective seven years ago, how have your clients’ needs changed since then?

When we started Avid Collective, direct partnerships were already a key focus of publishers and delivered strong value to brands because they build trust, relevance, and deeper audience connections. What’s changed isn’t the effectiveness of the format, but the requirements of the channel for both parties.

With pressures on other ad streams, most notably programmatic, publishers are increasingly focusing on how they can scale direct partnership revenue, which still enjoys steady but moderate growth.

For agencies and advertisers, resource and cost pressures, coupled with a fragmented media market, means it’s harder for them to engage frequently with publishers.

Our recent survey of 160 agency leads found that 79% of respondents agreed that manual workflows across briefing, approvals, campaign delivery, and reporting limit their ability to deliver higher-quality, more impactful work. For advertiser and publisher direct partnerships to grow, it needs to be easier than it is currently.

Avid Collective recently launched in the UK, why now?

We launched in the UK around 12 months ago, and the timing felt right because although the UK and Australian markets are very different in scale, the challenges publishers face are remarkably similar. Both markets are wrestling with pressure to diversify revenue beyond programmatic, find ways to scale growing channels such as branded content, events, and sponsorship – all whilst managing ongoing costs.

Australia represents an excellent blueprint for us to adapt in the UK, having worked with publishers large and small. The learnings we make in that market help shape our UK proposition, and we’ve already seen in the UK that there is an appetite for a similar solution. UK publishers are ambitious, innovative, and highly motivated to find better ways to grow sustainable revenue streams.

Now more than ever, publishers are prioritising diverse revenue streams. How important are digital partnerships to driving sustainable growth, and how can tech help?

Digital partnerships are one of the most valuable revenue streams publishers have. They build trust, drive cultural relevance for brands, and createthe kind of deep audience connection that other channels, including the big tech platforms, simply can’t replicate. They allowpublishers to lean into formats, be it events, podcast sponsorships, or branded video content that create true cut through with audiences.

The challenge has never been the format or the outcomes. The challenge is scale. Digital partnerships have been notoriously difficult to grow because the operational load is so heavy – from planning and briefing through to approvals, delivery, and reporting. It takes time, people, and coordination, and that makes it harder to compete with channels that are faster and easier to buy.

That’s where technology becomes essential. Partnerships and content didn’t receive the technology rebuild that other channels did, and the industry has been feeling the effects of that for years. The role of technology now is to give publishers and their clients the time and headspace to do what they do best – focus on strategy, creativity, and storytelling. Instead of being weighed down by coordination, admin, and manual tasks that tech can automate and manage efficiently.  

What’s your 2026 prediction?

With the pressures of external forces, such as AI technologies, I think we will continue to see collaboration between publishers – increasingly working together to shift policy, share resources, and indeed sell together.