Millions are tuning in to The Celebrity Traitors. But with no ad breaks on the BBC, how can brands get in on the action?
The Celebrity Traitors is back, and Britain is hooked.
The second series opened with 8.9 million viewers, capturing almost 55% of everyone watching television at the time. Even more impressively, 83.5% of 16–34-year-olds watching TV were tuned in. A younger audience that advertisers are often told has abandoned traditional television.
And the numbers are still climbing. Episode three attracted an average of 10 million viewers, with a peak of 10.3 million.For advertisers, that's a seriously tempting audience. There's just one problem. It's on the BBC.
Unlike commercial broadcasters, BBC One and BBC iPlayer don't carry conventional advertising in the UK. No commercial breaks. No 30-second spots. No opportunity to get your brand in front of those millions of viewers during the programme.
But that doesn't mean advertisers have to sit this one out.
The conversation doesn't end when the credits roll.
The Traitors isn't just a television programme. It's become a national conversation.
Viewers debate who's lying, dissect every suspicious glance and share theories about who deserves banishment. By the next morning, the drama has escaped the television screen and found its way into group chats, social feeds, podcasts and office conversations.
And that creates a much bigger opportunity for brands. Because while ten million people might watch the same programme, they don't all experience it in the same way.
Some are casual viewers. Others are spending hours analysing every facial expression, constructing elaborate theories and arguing with complete strangers on Reddit about whether someone blinked suspiciously at breakfast.
For advertisers, those smaller, highly engaged audiences could be just as valuable as the millions watching on television.
The secret is knowing where the attention goes next.
The real roundtable is happening on Reddit.
If you want to find people who are properly invested in The Traitors, Reddit is a good place to start.
Communities such as r/TheTraitorsUK are full of episode discussions, conspiracy theories, contestant rankings and people conducting forensic investigations into what James Blunt meant by a particular sentence.
It's the kind of engagement most brands would happily spend a small fortune trying to manufacture – which presents an interesting opportunity.
Reddit advertising allows brands to target relevant communities and interests, putting them in front of people already discussing the subject. Rather than trying to reach every person who watched the programme, a brand can focus on those who are most actively engaged with it.
But there's a catch. Reddit users have a fairly well-developed ability to spot marketing nonsense, so a brand barging into a fan discussion with a forced Traitors pun is unlikely to win many friends. A clever, relevant campaign that understands the community has a much better chance. Because sometimes the most valuable audience isn't the biggest one. It's the one that actually cares.
Why pay for the programme when you can sponsor the piss-take?
One of the more interesting things about a cultural phenomenon like The Traitors is the entertainment it creates outside the programme itself.
There are creators making hilarious episode recaps, meme accounts sharing increasingly ridiculous clips, and social pages collecting the best moments without any context whatsoever.
For fans, this unofficial content is often just as much part of the viewing experience as the show. And unlike the programme on BBC One, much of this independent content offers opportunities for commercial partnerships.
Imagine a brand sponsoring a creator's weekly comedy recap, partnering with a popular meme account or commissioning a series of spoiler-free reactions to each episode. The audience is already there. The creator understands what makes them laugh. And the brand can become part of something people genuinely want to watch.
There's also an opportunity to think beyond conventional influencer marketing. Rather than paying someone to hold up a product and explain why they love it, give them the freedom to make something entertaining.
A supermarket could sponsor a weekly roundtable snack review. A broadband provider could partner with creators producing live reactions and post-episode debates. A food delivery brand could own the Friday-night watch party. The possibilities are much more interesting than asking Claudia Winkleman to pose next to a packet of crisps.
Of course, any partnership would need to respect programme rights, copyright and the rules around commercial associations. But the wider fan conversation offers plenty of creative territory without pretending to be an official sponsor.
Sometimes the best media channel is a celebrity with a sense of humour.
The Celebrity Traitors also comes with something advertisers normally pay significant money to access: a cast of recognisable personalities, each with their own audiences and social media followings.
Take James Blunt. Long before entering the castle, he'd established himself as one of the more entertaining celebrities on social media, largely by making fun of himself before anyone else gets the chance. And his appearance on The Traitors has given him an entirely new subject to joke about.
For the right brand, that's potentially a far more interesting partnership than a traditional celebrity endorsement. Rather than simply hiring Blunt to appear in an advert, imagine collaborating on a piece of self-deprecating content that plays naturally to his personality and the conversations surrounding the programme.
The same principle applies to comedians such as James Acaster, Joe Lycett and Rob Beckett, whose established audiences already engage with their humour outside television.
Whether it's a social collaboration, a podcast sponsorship or an original piece of content, each personality offers a different route into the cultural moment.
The important thing is choosing someone whose tone and audience genuinely fit the brand, because a celebrity reading a marketing script is just an advert with a famous face, whereas a celebrity doing something genuinely funny is something people might actually share.
An outdoor campaign people are trying not to see.
Of course, you don't have to rely entirely on social media to get involved in the conversation.
The BBC has already demonstrated how to extend the drama beyond the castle with a giant interactive mural in Manchester's Northern Quarter.
Covering more than 250 square metres, the artwork features portraits of the celebrity contestants and is updated twice a week as players are murdered, banished or recruited. Red crosses appear over eliminated contestants, while a running tally keeps track of the unfolding drama.
It's essentially a giant, evolving spoiler for anyone who hasn't caught up. And that's created a rather unusual problem for outdoor advertising.
The BBC has introduced local spoiler warnings, with people carrying sandwich boards advising passers-by to steer clear. Meanwhile, an Instagram Reel shows people closing their curtains to avoid accidentally discovering who's been eliminated.
An outdoor campaign so unmissable that people are actively trying to miss it. It's a clever reminder that outdoor advertising doesn't have to be static.
By changing alongside the programme, the mural gives fans a reason to return, creates content people want to share and makes the campaign part of the entertainment itself.
The BBC might not be selling advertising space in the castle, but it's demonstrating exactly how a well-placed idea can travel far beyond its original location.
Think less about media channels. More about fan behaviour.
None of this means brands should abandon traditional media planning and throw their entire budget at someone making Traitors memes in their bedroom.
Although, depending on the memes, there might be worse investments.
Paid social, digital out-of-home, commercial TV, connected TV and digital audio still have an important role to play. But cultural moments like The Traitors demonstrate why a media plan should go beyond buying space on the biggest available platforms.
The opportunity could be a carefully targeted Reddit campaign, a niche podcast sponsorship, a collaboration with a comedy creator or a celebrity whose personality fits the brand. And these don't have to be expensive national campaigns.
For smaller brands, partnering with a handful of relevant creators could offer a more accessible route into a major cultural conversation than trying to compete for mass reach.
The important thing is understanding what audiences are doing, where they're doing it and why they'd want a brand to join them.
Because there's a difference between reaching someone who's interested in The Traitors and giving them something they'd actually be interested in.
Cultural relevance isn't about wearing a cloak.
Naturally, there's a temptation for every brand to jump on the same cultural references.
Expect plenty of jokes about Faithfuls, Traitors, roundtables and banishment. Some will be funny. Most will look suspiciously like they came out of a brainstorm where everyone was told to make it more topical. But simply referencing something popular doesn't automatically make a brand relevant.
The strongest opportunities come from understanding the behaviour around the programme, not just borrowing its language.
What are people laughing about? Who are they listening to? Which conversations are they having? And where could a brand add something genuinely worthwhile?
That's where creative thinking and media planning need to work together. The right placement gets you in front of an audience. The right idea gives them a reason to care.
Think outside the castle.
The Traitors proves that mass television audiences still exist. They're just not always available to advertisers in the places you'd expect. Millions of viewers become smaller communities of fans, comedy audiences, podcast listeners and social media detectives. Each offers brands a different way to join the conversation.
And sometimes that means reaching 50,000 people who are genuinely obsessed with something can be far more useful than reaching a million who barely notice you're there.
For marketers, the question shouldn't simply be ‘where can we buy advertising around The Traitors?’, it should be ‘where does The Traitors audience go when they're not watching The Traitors?’
At Cheeky, we take a media-neutral approach to finding the right audiences, channels and opportunities for your budget. Because the smartest media plan isn't always about being where everyone is watching. Sometimes it's about knowing where they'll be looking next.
Let's do something Cheeky together.
You don't need a castle-sized budget to reach an audience worth talking to.
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