By Dave Slowik, EVP, Global Media, Circana

The world of television is undergoing a significant transformation as people consume content across a variety of channels and platforms. With habits shifting across all generations, media planners must understand how their target audiences are engaging with TV and moving beyond passive viewing into transactional behaviors.

Media buyers planning their investments during the pivotal Upfront and NewFront season must make decisions based on information that reflects the current marketplace. Those decisions must take into account the behaviors of the marketplace’s younger consumers, who wield significant spending power and size and represent the future of TV. Circana’s research confirms that Gen Z and millennials have similar viewing habits, over-indexing on on-demand streaming and multi-device usage and often going beyond passive viewership. Although their TV preferences are similar, consumers in these two generational cohorts don’t shop or buy the same, which highlights the importance of integrating purchase-based data into marketing plans. 

Across all audiences, connecting with the right viewers at the ideal time and using the most effective format is possible in a world that has expanded far beyond a simple screen in a family room. To encourage consideration and drive actual conversion, marketers and media teams need to leverage insights for a full-funnel experience.

The Evolution of TV and Media Buying

Media buying has changed dramatically over the last few years, largely due to the rapid rise of cross-platform integration. Viewers now bounce between linear broadcasts, connected TV (CTV), and mobile devices, seamlessly and sometimes simultaneously.

It’s a more complicated time, to be sure, but it’s also a dynamic time that presents many opportunities for advertisers. The convergence of media, commerce, and entertainment means TV is shifting from one-way engagement to two-way interaction.

To capitalize on these interactions, brands must adopt a versatile, omnichannel approach to their media planning that is rooted in precision.  Using data to understand cross-platform audience behaviors is critical to optimizing TV advertising strategies. For example, knowing what a household buys off-screen directly influences how to target that household on-screen.  

In a recent webinar discussion, Justin Rosen, SVP of data and analytics at Ampersand, underscored the need for data in this new era of transactional television.  "We’ve moved well past the decision to use data in a creative way in your TV strategy. If you’re not doing that, you’re not just behind — you’re probably out. What’s happening this year is not about whether you’re using data, it’s about how. We can now start to show definitively metrics up and down the performance funnel demonstrating how all TV content is driving some sort of outcome,” he declared.

Unlocking Opportunities Across TV Formats

Every form of television has unique features and benefits. Traditional linear TV continues to play a role in building brand awareness and improving mental availability. Linear TV offers a broad audience reach and lasting effects, often lingering in a consumer’s decision-making process for weeks.

While linear TV remains viable and relevant, consumers increasingly balance this form of viewership with other formats. Streaming and CTVs, with models that include ad-supported video on demand (AVOD), subscription video on demand (SVOD), and free ad-supported streaming (FAST), work quite well for programmatic advertising and personalized messaging.  In fact, Circana data shows that CTV delivers a return on ad spend (ROAS) that is 15% higher than linear TV and 21% higher than short-form video.

For both linear and connected TV, media planners can leverage data that identifies audience preferences and indicates which consumers are more likely to engage with certain shows. For example, if marketers are trying to reach younger consumers, they can lean into the fact that Gen Z and millennial consumers significantly over-index on on-demand streaming and multi-device usage, and they expect interactive, highly relevant advertising.

Make the Right Decisions with Circana’s Measurement Solutions

The fragmented TV market makes purchase outcomes a pivotal metric for media buyers. High reach means little if you fail to connect with verified buyers.

Circana’s media entertainment solutions, which include purchase-based data, help brands plan effectively. By incorporating past purchase behavior into buying strategies, marketers and media teams ensure that their messages reach households proven to buy their products.

Anna Miller, director of ad measurement and research at Roku, emphasized these new capabilities during the recent Circana webinar. “As we think about performance, what that means to us is we have the unique signal to actually start building outcome engines or optimization engines.  Now we should actually be driving predictable outcomes through machine learning,” she said.

In addition to driving outcomes, advertisers can fuel longer-term ROAS with marketing mix modeling (MMM), which helps them understand the financial impact of every dollar spent.  Circana’s Marketing Mix solution enables brands to uncover new opportunities by measuring the incremental impact of individual channels and specific campaigns.

Advertisers can use MMM to quickly identify underperforming investments, giving them a chance to reallocate resources to high-impact channels before budgets are wasted. The solution also supports long-term strategic planning by predicting the impact of future media investments. Instead of abruptly pivoting away from traditional formats, advertisers can use a phased approach. For example, a brand might reallocate 20% of its budget from linear to CTV in the first quarter, measure the performance, and then adjust targeting based on actual sales lift.

Ultimately, in a quickly-evolving TV landscape that now includes various aspects of commerce, high-quality data is a valuable asset. As Ampersand’s Rosen pointed out,  “Marketers understand that if they have access to high-quality first-party data, that is among their most valuable assets. They should be looking to take advantage of that and even monetize that from a marketing perspective relentlessly. It should be the core of their strategy…it should be central to everything they do across every screen.”

Click here to watch the full webinar.