Rebel Spirit Media
Latest
DAILY BRIEF Football's gambling inventory is being squeezed from both ends at onceDAILY BRIEF A 25% machine duty would be a reprieve for the high street — and a warning shot for everyone buying onlineDAILY BRIEF The regulator has just published the black market's media plan — and it is a search queryDAILY BRIEF IG Group is buying into betting's airtime — and it is not buying as a bookmakerDAILY BRIEF The Commission has stopped treating your marketing supply chain as somebody else's problemDAILY BRIEF Football's gambling inventory is being squeezed from both ends at onceDAILY BRIEF A 25% machine duty would be a reprieve for the high street — and a warning shot for everyone buying onlineDAILY BRIEF The regulator has just published the black market's media plan — and it is a search queryDAILY BRIEF IG Group is buying into betting's airtime — and it is not buying as a bookmakerDAILY BRIEF The Commission has stopped treating your marketing supply chain as somebody else's problem

Matt Way

Matt Way is the founder of Rebel Spirit Media. He has spent more than twenty years buying and planning media for UK advertisers, including a spell as Investment Partner at EssenceMediacom. He now works directly with growth brands on TV, BVOD, connected TV and sponsorship.

Matt Way, founder of Rebel Spirit Media and UK TV media buyer

Matt Way, founder of Rebel Spirit Media

Matt started Rebel Spirit Media to do media differently. The idea was simple. Growth brands deserve senior people doing the actual work, open books, and media that answers to commercial outcomes.

That means no layers. No rotating junior teams. Clients deal with the people who build and buy the plan.

Rebel Spirit works with a deliberately small number of clients. That is the point, not a limitation. It keeps senior attention on every account.

Twenty years in media investment

Matt has held senior media roles across sport, entertainment, fashion and FMCG. Before founding Rebel Spirit he was Investment Partner at EssenceMediacom.

Twenty years of buying builds something that cannot be shortcut. It tells you what fair value looks like on a schedule. It tells you when a price is good, and when it only looks good.

That is the judgement Matt brings to a TV plan.

TV, BVOD and connected TV

Matt plans and buys across linear TV, BVOD and connected TV. He also works across OOH, audio, digital video, paid social and podcasts, so TV is judged next to the alternatives rather than in isolation.

Some briefs need national TV. Some need regional. Some need BVOD or connected TV to control frequency or reach lighter viewers. Some need a response test before anything scales.

Matt helps compare those routes before the money is committed.

Sponsorship and big-moment TV

Matt also structures sponsorship and partnership deals, and ties them back into the media plan.

Recent work includes bringing MrQ together with AFC Bournemouth, Queens Park Rangers and Queensberry Promotions, and MrQ’s platinum sponsorship of Eubank Jr vs Benn 2.

Big moments only work when the media around them works. A sponsorship with no media behind it is a logo. Matt plans the two together.

Client experience

Matt’s client work spans music, audio, film, education, streaming and gaming. It includes Universal Music, Beats, Universal Pictures, Entertainment Film Distributors, The Open University, Now TV and MrQ.

Rebel Spirit’s founding client is MrQ, the UK online casino brand. Matt has also advised media owners, including C-Screens, on growth and route to market.

Every client needs a different plan. A film release is not an education brief. A streaming subscription drive is not a gaming acquisition campaign. Matt looks at the commercial goal first, then chooses the media.

Matt and Peter Legg have worked the same accounts for years, including Universal Music, Universal Pictures and MrQ. That shared history is why the two of them can move quickly on a brief.

What Matt checks

He works with the standard planning tools, including BARB, Route, Adalyser, Active Voice, Jet and cAria, and is certified in IAB Retail Media.

Radical transparency

Rebel Spirit buys with open books. Clear fees. No hidden margins.

If the buy cannot be evidenced, what was bought, what it cost and what it delivered, the fee is not charged that month.

That standard exists because Matt spent twenty years on the other side of it.

How Matt Way works

Matt starts with the business, not the brief. What is the commercial goal? Who needs reaching? What is the budget actually for?

From there he audits what is running, finds where value is leaking, and builds the plan around the gap. He shows the main choices and explains the trade-offs.

If TV is the right route, he says so. If it is not the right route yet, he says that too.

Every prospective client is offered a no-obligation diagnostic, a structured review of current media activity. No pitch theatre. A straight conversation, then an honest view on what he would do differently, and why.

Contact Matt Way

Email: matt@rebelspiritmedia.co.uk
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matt-way-b0101116

Related guides

Read more about TV airtime buying, independent TV media buying, TV sponsorship costs, regional TV price variation, DRTV media buying and the TV media buying glossary.