When Skydeo Creative Director Mallory Gray and I sat down to discuss Love Island’s impact on advertising, I wasn’t expecting the interview to begin in my refrigerator.
A few days before our conversation, I opened the fridge and found a can of Love Island-branded Poppi soda. I hadn’t bought it. My daughter, who is 19, did. One day her hair is pink, the next day it’s purple. She has piercings. Everything is curated. She doesn’t consume lightly. The things she buys, wears, drinks, and shares are all part of a larger aesthetic and identity.
So when I found the Love Island Poppi can in the refrigerator, I knew it wasn’t an accidental purchase. It was part of a carefully curated experience. She wanted her friends to open the fridge and immediately recognize it. It wasn’t just a soda. It was a cultural signal.
That can in the fridge may explain more about modern media consumption than any audience report ever could. Today’s consumers don’t necessarily need to watch a show to participate in its culture.
They absorb clips on TikTok. They follow memes. They hear references from friends. They engage with the conversation surrounding the content rather than the content itself.
The Poppi can wasn’t just a beverage. It was a cultural artifact.
My daughter wanted friends to recognize it when they opened the refrigerator. She wanted to participate in the conversation. And according to Gray, that’s exactly why brands should be paying attention.
One of the most surprising insights from our discussion was that advertisers may be defining the audience too narrowly.
“People think they’re targeting viewers,” Gray explained.
In reality, brands are increasingly targeting participants. “A huge part of that is happening on social versus people actually pressing play on Peacock,” Gray said. “It’s reaching so many more people than even the viewers watching the show.”
That’s a fundamental shift. For decades, marketers bought access to audiences through media consumption. Today, audiences often encounter culture through fragments, clips, reactions, and conversations. The show becomes the spark. The cultural participation becomes the fire.
Gray’s biggest warning to advertisers was surprisingly simple. Don’t wait. “The biggest misconception is that brands can wait until the show’s over and then hop on the moment,” she said.
With audiences consuming content in real time, relevance now has an expiration date measured in hours rather than weeks. “If they’re not waking up and figuring out what went viral last night and responding before lunchtime, they might be out of the conversation already.”
The speed of modern culture has fundamentally altered the pace of marketing. What once required months of planning now demands daily participation.
Love Island has become a perfect example of this shift because it no longer functions as just a television show. It operates like a nightly cultural event. Viewers track couples, quote contestants, debate betrayals, adopt catchphrases, follow brand tie-ins, and treat each episode as raw material for the next day’s social conversation.
The show’s influence now extends well beyond Peacock or the villa itself. It lives in group chats, TikTok edits, reaction videos, memes, recaps, podcasts, and the products people buy to feel closer to the moment. For younger audiences in particular, Love Island is not simply something to watch. It is something to join.
One of Gray’s strongest observations came when discussing brands that attempt to force their way into cultural conversations. “Brands can’t rent their way into the conversation,” she said. “They have to earn it.” That idea surfaced repeatedly throughout our discussion.
Consumers, particularly younger consumers, have developed a remarkable ability to detect inauthenticity. They know when a brand genuinely understands the culture. And they know when a brand simply purchased a sponsorship package. The difference matters.
No brand illustrated this better than Poppi.
While larger advertisers spent significant dollars on sponsorships and integrations, Poppi succeeded by understanding the audience’s language.
Last season, contestant Amaya Espinal became a fan favorite. Viewers affectionately referred to her as “Amaya Papaya.”
Poppi quickly created social content built around the joke. The audience loved it. The company wasn’t advertising to fans. It was participating alongside them.
According to Gray, Poppi generated more visibility than some brands that had actually paid to be featured on the show. “The audience loved it because the brand was in on the joke with them,” she said.
The lesson isn’t about soda. It’s about participation. At one point, our discussion turned toward the broader advertising industry. I found myself thinking about how many marketers continue operating with strategies built for a different era. I compared it to someone being handed a car and insisting on riding a horse.
Traditional campaign structures often require months of approvals, multiple layers of review, and rigid planning cycles. Meanwhile, culture is moving at internet speed.
Gray immediately agreed. Brands that insist on lengthy approval processes are putting themselves at a disadvantage. “You can’t wait until the summer’s over,” she said.
“You have to trust your social media managers to make the right decision and get the post out as quickly as possible, because otherwise it’s going to feel inauthentic.”
Her response highlighted one of the central tensions in modern marketing. Technology has accelerated communication. Corporate structures often do not. The brands winning today are frequently the ones willing to move faster.
One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation involved an unexpected topic: nostalgia. While discussing Gen Z behavior, we explored a trend that seems almost contradictory. Young consumers are embracing new technology while simultaneously craving authenticity. They’re buying vintage cameras. Shopping at thrift stores. Rejecting overly polished content. And in some cases, expressing skepticism toward AI-generated material.
Gray noted that Skydeo’s audience data has identified significant growth among what the company calls “nostalgic buyers.” What’s surprising is that Gen Z is participating just as enthusiastically as older generations. Consumers want speed.
But they also want something real.
That may explain why Love Island continues to resonate. The show is live. The reactions are immediate. The conversations, unscripted. And the audience feels like it’s participating rather than simply consuming.
As our conversation wrapped up, I asked Gray where she believes advertising is headed over the next five years. Her answer was direct. “The future is going to be all about speed.”
But speed alone isn’t enough. The larger lesson may be that successful brands are no longer interrupting culture. They’re becoming part of it. For marketers with limited budgets, Gray’s advice was clear.
“If a brand has one thing to do, insert yourself into the cultural moment.”
Not because it’s trendy. Because that’s where attention lives now.
The Poppi can in my refrigerator was never really about soda. It was about belonging. And increasingly, that’s what modern marketing is selling.
Amy Pais-Richer is a published author, screenwriter and former advertising creative director.
REELated:
Everything to know about Love Island USA S8 ahead of premiere
