This IAB Europe Industry Insider, in partnership with IAS, will explore how European brands, agencies, and platforms are rethinking brand safety as a strategic performance lever ahead of the World Cup. From contextual precision on social to transparency challenges in CTV, panellists will discuss how AI-driven content analysis and independent verification are helping marketers cut through complexity, protect brand equity, and ensure every media euro works harder during the world’s biggest cultural moments.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to be one of the largest media moments in history. With the tournament expanding to 48 teams and 104 matches, global ad spend is forecast to surpass $1 trillion for the first time, according to Dentsu, driven in part by major sporting tentpoles. Yet for European marketers, this scale arrives at a moment of real constraint. Gartner reports average marketing budgets have fallen from 9.1% to 7.7% of company revenue, intensifying pressure on performance, accountability, and brand risk.

As audiences fragment across social platforms, creator ecosystems, and Connected TV, brands face an explosion of content and a parallel rise in brand safety and fraud ris, particularly around global sporting events, which are frequent targets for sophisticated invalid traffic. In this “algorithmic era,” media quality is no longer a post-campaign metric, but a prerequisite for ROI.