IAB PlayFronts 2026 Pivots to Gaming ROI Over Audience Size

The Interactive Advertising Bureau held its fifth-annual IAB PlayFronts conference in New York City on September 17, marking a strategic shift in how the industry approaches gaming advertising. The event took place in September for the first time, moving from its previous March or April schedule.

Cintia Gabilan, IAB senior vice president of centers of excellence and industry initiatives, outlined the new direction in her keynote. While previous PlayFronts editions established that gaming deserved a place in advertisers' media plans, this year's focus moved toward measuring consumer response to brands within games and tracking advertising returns.

"That is a harder question because it forces us to move beyond audience size," Gabilan said. "Fandom matters, but fandom by itself does not demonstrate business impact. Attention matters, but advertisers ultimately need to understand whether that attention changes behavior."

The conference featured panels from major players in gaming advertising. Zynga brought multiple executives to discuss scaling creative specifically built for gaming platforms, while Roblox head of agency partnerships Mike Schoelch participated in a panel on immersive gaming environments alongside representatives from Google, WPP Media, and Geeiq.

Several companies announced new products at the event. Livad Technologies unveiled a virtual product placement feature designed to make livestreamed content shoppable at scale. Zynga launched Zynga Ads+, a platform giving brands access to its combined audience of over 100 million players. The company also shared data showing its mobile gaming inventory achieved an average Attention Index of 204 according to DoubleVerify, exceeding the firm's "very high performer" benchmark of 133.

Gabilan emphasized the shift toward data-driven decisions. "What I really like about the day overall is that it comes from this place of ROI — hard data, which is where we are trying to migrate to," she said. "So, we are arming the buyer with the story that this can drive business outcomes, versus how cool it is and how big it is."

IAB PlayFronts was part of Global Creator Week, a broader slate of events held across multiple cities including Berlin and Dubai. The IAB also hosted its 2026 Podcast Upfront on September 16, with Gabilan noting that community, fandom, creators, and influencers form common threads across gaming, podcasting, and creator content.