Vudoo campaign for Mattel highlights how commerce-enabled media is delivering measurable outcomes at scale, including the President’s Award — recognising work that sets the benchmark for the future of commerce media
Melbourne, 29 April 2026 – A campaign already noted as an early example of commerce-enabled media has now picked up global recognition this week, reinforcing a broader shift underway across the industry.
Vudoo’s work with Mattel was recognised at The Drum Commerce Media Awards in Miami, taking out multiple honours including the President’s Award, alongside wins for Best Full Funnel Campaign and Best Use of CTV / Online Video in Commerce Media.
The President’s Award is selected from across all entries and recognises work that signals where the category is heading, rather than performance within a single discipline.
While the campaign itself has been covered previously, the significance here is less about the execution and more about what it points to.
At its core, the model changes the role media plays. Instead of sending audiences elsewhere to complete a purchase, the transaction happens within the media experience itself — allowing consumers to browse products, build a cart and check out without stepping outside the content they’re already engaging with.
In this case, that translated into a 122% increase in product units sold and a 136% lift in transaction value. Connected TV, typically positioned as an upper-funnel channel, recorded a 19% add-to-cart rate, pointing to a different role for the format when commerce is built in.
The campaign ran across display, video and CTV, and was delivered with News Corp Australia, Yahoo DSP, Afterpay Media Network, IPG KINESSO Commerce and Amazon. Together, the partners brought media, audience data and transaction infrastructure into a single system, enabling performance to be shaped by real-time shopping behaviour rather than proxy metrics.
Nick Morgan, Founder and CEO of Vudoo, said the shift reflects growing expectations around what media should deliver.
“There’s increasing pressure to tie media back to actual business outcomes,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is the shift toward commerce everywhere — where any piece of media can also be a point of transaction. The gap between exposure and purchase is getting smaller, and in some cases disappearing altogether.”
Chief Strategy Officer Paul Blackburn said the implications extend beyond a single campaign.
“This isn’t just about one campaign performing well,” he said. “It shows what happens when media, data and commerce are treated as part of the same system. Once those pieces are connected, you move beyond proxy metrics and start measuring what actually drives growth.”
Beyond online performance, the campaign also influenced in-store behaviour, with sales more than doubling year-on-year during the campaign period.
The recognition builds on Vudoo’s earlier WARC Award for Effectiveness and reflects a continued focus on linking media activity to measurable commercial outcomes.
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About Vudoo
Vudoo is a commerce media technology company that embeds shopping directly into content and media across any channel. Its platform enables brands, agencies, publishers and ad tech partners to activate instant commerce – browsing, carting and checkout inside ads and content – turning moments of attention into measurable commerce outcomes. Built to plug into the existing programmatic and commerce ecosystem, Vudoo delivers closed-loop attribution and rich intent signals across display, video, CTV and emerging surfaces.