← Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
CTV and Streaming Advertising Trends for 2026 Summit Panel: The Evolution of the Streaming Viewer | Behind the Numbers Special Edition
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Hello and welcome to a special edition episode of the E Marketer podcast, behind the Numbers. I am Marcus Johnson and today I'm introducing an episode from the e Marketer Summit, CTV and Streaming Advertising Trends for 2026 is what it was called, held on November 14. And in this episode, panelists examine how audiences are behaving when it comes to CTV engagement. Learn from eMarketer principal forecasting writer Ethan Kramer Flood as he speaks with Amanda Corral, the senior director of paid media strategy from PepsiCo Nidhia Sahagan, the head of marketing strategy and innovation for the primary care organization at Humana and Todd Segal, the senior director of media sales at Verve.
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Hello everyone, my name is Ethan Kramer Flood and I'm the principal forecasting writer here here at eMarketer. I hope you've been enjoying all the great sessions in our CTV summit so far. So the conversation I'm about to host will be on the evolution of the streaming viewer and it has been made possible by Verve. Before I introduce you to my distinguished guests, let me kick things off with just a few data points that will help us set the foundation for the discussion to come. Now, my colleague Ross touched on some of these at his excellent keynote speaking speech at the beginning of today's summit. So I'm not going to run through too much here, but I just want to hit some of the big numbers that I think help illuminate why it is such a. Why this topic is such a hot topic right now. So first of all, just right at the very top line emarketers forecasts for CTV users in 2026, 244 million people, that is 72% of the population, will be watching CTV as of next year. If that seems like a really big number, it is. So by comparison, traditional pay TV, traditional cable TV will be 158 million. So we're talking about CTV already by next year exceeding traditional pay TV by just an enormous gap. And that is only going to get bigger. As Ross mentioned, a significant chunk of these viewers now are seeing ads. So the ad supported video on demand viewership figure will cross 200 million for the first time next year. A lot of those people, the majority, are watching on ctv. Of course they don't have to be. You can be watching that on your tablets or on your phones. But CTV really is the primary venue for AVOD now. And then, because of those 200 million ad supported viewers, CTV ad spending itself is skyrocketing. As probably everyone knows, we are forecasting 37 billion in CTV advertising for next year. And that represents 14% growth, which is one of the highest growth figures that you can find across all the various sort of advertising metrics that we track. So that just sets the stage. So let me now welcome our panelists for today. Amanda Corral, senior director, Paid media strategy from PepsiCo. Amanda, welcome.
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Thank you, Ethan. Happy to be here.
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We also have Nidia Sahagun, head of marketing strategy and innovation Port Primary Care Organization from Humana. Nidia, welcome.
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Thanks, Ethan. Great to be here.
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And last but not least, Todd Segal, senior director, Media sales from Verve. Todd, welcome aboard.
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Thanks for having me, Ethan.
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So let's kick off this discussion. We've got a whole bunch of really good questions. I hope we can get to all of them. Nidia, let me start with you. So CTV obviously has fully arrived. The data points show it. We're talking about getting up close to 250 million viewers pretty soon. But also, CTV is popular across all age cohorts, all sort of categories. In the adult 25 to 55 range, we're talking about nearly 90% penetration for CTV viewership. Among the Gen Z teens, it's getting up close to that level. But also among the oldest cohorts, the boomer is 65 plus, it's well over half. And that cohort actually is showing the fastest growth in terms of CTV viewership. So how is this demographic evolution changing how brands, particularly yours, are thinking about ctv?
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Well, I think that's a really great question, Ethan, and it's definitely shaped our media strategy overall, seeing this shift. And so we do see a lot of seniors still on linear tv. But I think there's been this myth about seniors in that they don't really mix with technology. And so we've seen the opposite to be true and are debunking that myth. And in CTV specifically, we know that they're present and increasingly growing. And so this channel for us is really important. And we attribute the level of engagement that we're seeing with seniors now to two things. The first is really ease of use, but the second is most important because they historically have been slower to adopt ctv. And a big driver in that is that a lot of streaming services were not developing content that tailored to the senior audience. So now that that has really evolved and changed, it's given us an opportunity to engage in with this audience in a much more relevant way in shows that they're interested in. And so we're seeing the rise of classic programs with some of our partners, like Westerns, Rifleman, I Love Lucy, Mash the black and white. And so it's really given us an opportunity to engage them and it's become an increasingly larger part of our channel mix.
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Amanda?
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Yeah, no, I, I think with the older cohort making the shift as well as sports viewers. Right. We're seeing a lot of movement in the sports rights space here and streamers really investing that's made that flip that you mentioned earlier from, you know, time spent and users and. And so streaming isn't this emerging channel anymore. It's the new default. Right. Everything has now become video. It's still video, still acts as a new mass reach engine, but now it's built on digital rails. Right. So the story isn't less video with linear erosion, it's better video, I think powered by targeting, obviously reach management and stronger outcome based buying while still keeping that high attention moment. So I think, you know, it shifts how we think about the channel and the occasion and our overall mix. Right. As it holds true to still a big moment in kind of all consumers, all cohorts. Right. Gathered around the TV watching their favorite content.
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Yeah, I would, I would add to that the amount of content now available on CTV is overwhelming. You know, there are thousands of fast channels, there's tens of millions of shows and movies and titles. So it makes it very tough for marketers to align around context. So what we're seeing is, because it is a digital medium is a real focus on trying to identify audience wherever they're watching, whether it be certain apps or certain programming. It's much easier to find audiences and to try and align with context.
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C
Yeah, we've got a whole question on fragmentation coming up later. So put a pin in that. We'll get back to it. And then. Yeah, as Nydia was speaking, the first thing I thought of was free ad supported streaming tv, which I think has come up earlier today in some of the previous sessions in the Summit. But yeah, talk about having a channel where you can just lean back and watch some old westerns. There's tons of it. There's just so much content for every possible generation now. There's nothing keeping anyone off of ctv. Amanda. So speaking of how much there is, subscription fatigue is certainly part of the story, and we know that that is rising. But in tandem with that, there is also this increased tolerance for advertising on these streaming platforms. So these go hand in hand, right. So that the prices are going up. There's so many ways to spend your money on all these subscriptions. So now to ease the pain of all of those cost increases, people are turning to the ad supported tier. So we are E marketer projections show very strong growth for all types of ad supported viewing. Those fast channels themselves or the fast concept in general, I think is going to be the fastest growing category, at least in terms of viewers. But we know that Netflix and Disney and all the streamers that are rolling out have been rolling out their ad tiers. Those are growing faster than their not ad tiers. And of course there's YouTube which has come up a bunch today as well, which has always been advertising centric and has suddenly become the number one possible option for everyone on CTV screens. So Amanda, what is this growing openness to ads from the viewers that maybe used to look at CTV as a non ad environment, but we have this growing openness to ads. So what does this mean for how marketers design a creative and the messaging in what is now this ad supported environment?
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Yeah, no, it's an interesting dynamic. I mean, what a time to be a marketer when people are asking for ads. Right. It's an interesting dynamic. They used to go to streaming to get away from them and now the ad experience is what's bringing value back to consumers. Right. As they're increasingly more tolerant in the exchange. Right. I think it was like 81% call ad supporting streaming a fair trade for free content. So it really flips the script, the traditional subscription model here. Right. Which really opens up all the opportunities that we have in the ad space. And so as more consumers opt into us, we want to ensure our brands are coming through in a meaningful way. It's really opening up the landscape and it's making it accessible for everybody. And so what does that look like? It's still using those high attention TV moments to pull through our emotional brand storytelling, but also thinking through other pieces of the experience. Think about pause ads. Right. It's it. There are different elements that the brands can really lean into. We want to show up authentically. We want to show up especially, you know, in our, our PepsiCo brands. We want to bring joy to the experience that includes the brand messages we're putting in front of our consumers. So creating moments where our brands can show up contextually, like, you know, a good pause for a snack break or thinking how we might start to build content hubs with sponsorships to build meaningful experiences for consumers around key seasonal occasions or passion points. So it's, it's a way that the consumer has let advertising and brands come into the space and engage and we want to show up in a meaningful way, contextually relevant Engaging, offering value to the experience versus disrupting it.
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That's awesome. Can I add to that that I think that it's such a better ad experience in CTV than traditional linear or cable for a couple reasons. One is, you know, the ad load is so much slower, like 4 to 6 minutes typically versus 12 to even 18 minutes in cable. So it's much more tolerable to the consumer. And then secondly, I think ads can be so much more relevant in CTV than they are necessarily in linear, where it's one to many. In this case, you can get customized personalized ads that are tailored to an individual. Right. Versus that one to many. So the ad experience is better from just a low ad load, but also from a personalization perspective.
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Yeah.
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And I would build on what Amanda said, I think for, for us at center well, which is our primary care organization within Humana, it really becomes the entry point to the journey with our brand. And so, you know, seniors, they don't really see ads as disruptive. They almost expect it, especially when you're looking at a lot of the free programming that or streaming services that they're engaging with. So it doesn't diminish their experience, but it does give us an opportunity when they're very engaged in the content that they're watching, to begin that journey with us and really tell our brand story. And we're a high trust category. So it's really important for us the first time they interact with us, that we're coming to them with messages that are personalized to their needs, their needs states, their mindsets about their healthcare journey. And this really gives us a great opportunity to do that storytelling.
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Yeah, the nature of these ads, they're changing and evolving and the opportunity or I guess the ways in which this can be leveraged just changes so quickly. Those pause ads that you mentioned, just on a personal level, I mean, they came out of nowhere and now they're everywhere. And then frankly they're pretty effective because they're not disruptive because you've already made the decision to pause and then there seems to be this wide variety of what can even go in there. Some of them are still images, which I think is interesting. And so Amanda, let me, let me keep it with you as we move on. Sort of segue off this in terms of like what, what is happening with the ads themselves and how TV ad creative is sort of changing. Right. Because you do now see this blend. You can have this cinematic brand style ads and a creator style YouTube kind of spots and they're all happening all in the same place. Now you can, you can, at least for me, you can watch a 5 second ad and it's followed by a 2 minute long ad and they're one right after the other on the same. And then you've got these AI generated ads now sort of flowing in the middle of all of that. And it's the experience of what a TV ad is, seems to have changed. So how, I mean, how does that fit both from your side and then from the viewer side in terms of what are, what, what is a TV ad now?
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You know, I think, I think it really, I think it depends on your brand strategy and your approach to building connections with consumers. Right. I think because we can buy it digitally now, that means that brings in shorter form, that brings in things that we've seen success from like creator led and social and scroll environments into this new streaming. So it's, it's been interesting to see the landscape and you start to, I remember when it first started, you would be like, oh wow, you know, like that's an interesting D2C spot to see on my TV. And now I think we're used to it. But I think for us, you know, what we really want to make sure we're not losing is understanding the consumer in that moment, in that stream moment versus the scroll moment versus the shot moment versus a search moment. Right. And how our brands can show up in a meaningful way. It's important that we maintain cohesive storytelling of our brands but scaling efficiently and that requires us to think about that occasion, that viewing occasion, ensuring our message is fit for platform. So whether that's the TV or mobile device, watching your favorite sports teams or scrolling through your feed, you know, creative and messaging must adapt and ads should be relevant, engaging and tailored. Right. That's why we all have jobs, which is great for us. And so I think, you know, we want to not lose that sense while still being able to capitalize on now the placements in the way that we can buy. So going back to pause ads, right, we, we're still using our streaming inventory to tell our, you know, film storytelling messages from a brand perspective, being able to show up in more contextually relevant ways. If you think about our sports occasions versus our holiday occasions or brands to cohorts, but then maybe using those pause ads like we talked about earlier, which is more of an image, maybe that has a little bit more of a direct response or an engagement type message that can come across impactfully in that placement versus you know, a longer form in the video. So Again, making sure we're saying, grounded to that consumer experience and the, in the messages that we have on our brands and how they best come through in a way that drives, yes, reach, but also resonance. Right. Because we can reach them, but if they're not paying attention or if it's not landing, then it's, you know, not worth the investment. So thinking through and ensuring we're keeping track of that consumer moment, because it's very different. The TV screen moment is very different than your mobile screen moment.
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Yeah. Can I add to that? I would also say that consumers are really more than ever, really looking for authenticity in messaging. And so we've seen like just a real large amount of marketers coming and asking how do we tap into our influencer base? How do we take what used to be kind of an influencer in a social, social media and bring them to the TV set? And so we've seen more and more influencer commercials hitting the CTV space. And I think that trend is going to continue for sure.
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And Todd, I think that's spot on. And for our category, it's interesting because we have dabbled a little bit in influencers, but what we've realized is really more important in this moment is bringing in real authentic voices into our creative. And so it's not necessarily influencer, but it's actually a new testimonial campaign that we just launched in Q3 that we're really excited about. Early performance is extremely strong and it's using our patients that reflect our different markets and the communities that we're in and having them be the voice for the brand, but telling their real stories and how they've engaged with the brand and speaking to the care that they're receiving. And it's been incredible to see the response. And so we spent a lot of time just sourcing the right patients, ensuring that their stories would be relevant to the different communities that we serve. And it's incredible what authenticity, to Todd's point, can do in that connection with your consumer.
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Yeah, I think that shift of credible voices that has become so prevalent in social and your small screens, so we even think about content that's now available in streaming. This idea of what a credible voice is to Todd, your point on authenticity has changed in consumers eyes. So no matter where they're seeing your brand message, they want to make sure it seems authentic, credible and you can tap into new sources of what that means for consumers versus big talent, maybe.
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Right. There's so many layers to all of this. So Todd, I promise you, we would circle back on the fragmentation question. So let me kick this next one over to you. We know that the number of streaming services per household keeps rising. I think we've all experienced that ourselves. The time spent with CTV or with subscription streaming is very impressive, but it's getting spread across more and more and more platforms. And when we were having our kickoff meeting about this panel earlier, I think we had mentioned, or someone had mentioned sort of the death of monoculture and how there's nowhere to go anymore where you can really find everyone other than maybe, or other than sports, I guess. Right. That certain sports maybe still achieve that, that level. But otherwise it's pretty difficult. So here's your chance. So how are, how are marketers navigating this, this fragmented environment? And how do you find that audiences and create that meaningful connections at scale?
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Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I mean it is the depth of the monoculture because people are consuming, like I mentioned earlier, so many different titles. There's more than you could possibly ever watch. And so it does make it tough to find audiences just around like kind of what used to be just a contextual type buy, in my opinion. And so it is a digital medium and that does allow for audience targeting. And there's a plethora of ways to identify audiences in ctv, whether that's through buying directly or through a programmatic pipe or lens. But there are, you know, there's also mobile signals that can be applied to tv. So what used to be kind of a one to many medium is now, you know, an audience based opportunity for marketers.
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Yeah, I think that diversification of platforms means audience targeting and planning must be more data driven, period. Right. It brings tech and data to the forefront of the conversation alongside that premium content like sports and biggest properties, et cetera. And I think Todd, you mentioned programmatic. It's the connective tissue. Right. In bringing this fragmented streaming ecosystem together, I think households are juggling six to seven different services. And so, you know, manual planning becomes a little bit more inefficient and costly and so leveraging the program buying to unify the data signals. To your point, those can come from lots of places now, which is amazing. Automating, bidding to deliver the reach frequency, optimizing creative dynamically, you know, and ensuring that the campaign and the comms is following the viewer, not just the channel. I think this has been a huge unlock for us. Right. We've been living in some walled gardens or kind of a master all or really leaning into moments. And so now as marketers we can embrace truly audience based buying and these programmatic strategies to find and connect with the audiences. So I think for us it's ensuring again that cohesive storytelling across the platforms is essential. And then how do we kind of balance that personalization pieces with our brand story? And incomplete.
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I think for our audience we're probably seeing a little bit less fragmentation because seniors are more likely to use the free platforms. But agree with Amanda and just the advantage of running programmatic CTV helping you reach that audience directly. But we're still seeing our audience use those free platforms like Tubi, Fubo, watching reruns, those classics that I talked about. But I think as this space continues to evolve, I think and they continue to adopt more streaming services, we will start seeing that trend as well.
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So this next question you've all sort of touched on a little bit, but let me give us an opportunity to formally talk about it. And Nidhi, I'll start with you. But this personalization question. Right, so now with all this data and targeting tools available, personalization is obviously a key, but it's a challenge given the diversity of the audiences that you all have sort of been have brought up. So how do you think about tailoring creative messaging across all this, all this diversity and that could by age, by culture, by geography, how do you do that without losing your broader brand story?
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Yeah, and so for us, you know, we're reaching the senior 65 plus audience. We do see diversity across our footprint, whether that be multicultural, you think about an aging and cohort or a much, you know, older senior. But you know, we think that the programmatic buying is definitely a help. But creatively we do think this platform allows us to be able to tailor the creative, whether that be in the language in which they want to engage, whether that be reflecting the communities that that they live in. And I talked a little bit about our testimonial campaign and we did that through that campaign effort and just ensuring that that diversity was represented across all of the patients as we were sourcing them. That language played a role because of the diversity. You think about our footprint in Miami Dade, Rio Grande Valley and other markets like Louisiana, it's really important even for seniors to see themselves represented in that creative. And so we continue to do that as we think about the channels that we're in and certainly ensuring that we're reflecting our audience and testing all of our creators creative before we go to market.
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E
Yeah, that's great. I would add that technology is helping a lot. You know, dynamic creative optimization enables that tailored kind of Messaging and consumers actually I think expected, as long as it's not creepy. The other thing is, and I glad I'm not the first person to bring up AI, I think that was Ethan.
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But we were. Come on, we almost made it.
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But AI is allowing for very efficient creation of content and, and commercials as well. So I think technology is helping to kind of fight that battle.
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Yeah. And I think it's grounding in the insight. Right. You know, some. Some things are just a universal human truth. We see that a lot with families. Right. Our recent Simply campaign. It just is the insight was, you know, it's a battle as a parent to find a snack that your kids love that you also feel good about giving them. Right. And so some things are. Are universal. But then some things I think to Nadia's pointer are, you know, whether it's representation or even if it's just, you know, moments in time or, you know, for Mountain Dew, we really wanted to make sure we were personalizing around what good time moments meant. That could mean, I mean, think about the good time moments we have every day. And so how do we pull that through not just in the big mega moments that we all know, but the ones that we're experiencing in life. And that gave us an opportunity to really bring through the product in a way that was true to our brand and tonality. But, you know, reaching out and connecting with moments that matter and it doesn't. That's not cohort based. You know, lots of different ages. Like we talked about, love streaming, love gaming, love outdoor activities. And so finding that piece that the brand can show up and have a role in. We've also done a lot of contextual, obviously with what we talked about, passion points, but also time of day or seasonality, things like that, that as we go through, it's very different. You feel very different in the morning than you do at the end of the day or for our Quaker hots category. The weather outside is very indicative of whether you're ready for a warm bowl of oatmeal or not. Right. So how do you kind of lean into all data points to really ensure that you're taking that effort to be more relevant to the consumer? Right. From an ad perspective and not just always pushing.
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I think that's right. Amanda. On our end, I just want to build a little bit on the universal truths. When we think about seniors in health care, there is a universal truth that they want to spend more time with their physician, they want to feel seen, they want their physician to know them more personally. And that really is what our value based care model offers. But going back to the diversity of our cohort, that's also important in healthcare because culture does influence some of your habits and, you know, things of that nature. We're seeing in research that they want to see a doctor that reflects who they are. So as we think about our creative, we ensure that, you know, it sounds very tactical, but casting is important because health care is local and it is, there are cultural connections to it. And so I think you raise a really good point where you can, you need the insight and there is a balance for us in more of universal truths versus ensuring that we're reflecting who they are in their communities.
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So we are coming down the home stretch here and I do want to touch on one topic that we haven't discussed too much. Toddler. I'll kick this off with you. In terms of the viewer experience, there's this dreaded second screen viewing trend. We all do it. That's when you are in theory on the couch in front of your CTV watching one of these streaming services and one of these ads that we have worked so hard on comes up. But the person is not watching because they are actually staring at their phone, their second screen. And according to our forecast, well over 200 million people do this regularly. So it's just a reality that this is, this is part of the nature of the viewing experience now. So you're watching TV but you're also checking social media. Maybe you're also shopping, you're also texting, whatever. This phenomenon has usually been considered a bad thing or a challenge that needs to be overcome. But more recently you have these CTV related conversations that are kind of looking at maybe actually as an opportunity. So Todd, how do you see marketers leveraging this behavior, this trend in terms of rethinking the path to conversion across devices? What do you see that's working? What do you see that's not working? Where are we on that?
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E
Yeah, a couple of data or points I would make on this one is one, CTV television is still primarily a lean back mechanism. Lean back experience. There's no browsers in TV or ctv, so there's no way to necessarily make it transactionable without QR codes and things of that nature. The phone is actually kind of the entry point into making it more of a lean forward medium.
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C
Right.
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I was watching the football game last night on Amazon. Pretty much every other commercial had a QR code in it. Had my phone with me. Snap it, go. Right? So purchase that Pepsi while you're Watching the game. Secondly, having the phone with you and watching tv, there's a ability to cross screen market. Right. Take the follow the consumer journey from the television to the mobile device and back and forth. So there's actually real opportunity around sequential messaging and really just following the consumer as they move through their journey.
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A
Yeah, I think it's a challenge for us. I mean, you know, the second screen has been a dynamic for us for a while. You know, it's been there since mobile took off. And so some of the stuff that we know to be true when it comes to keeping attention on the TV still plays a role here. Right. Sound, music, things like that. You always want to make sure you're building your creative to it. But, but I agree with Todd. Right. Instead of looking at it as a distraction, why don't we take it as an opportunity for deeper engagement? Right. And so, you know, you. I didn't even have to, I didn't have to bring up our Thursday night football. But yeah, we did this with, with, with Amazon, right, where we had, we always have football campaigns. It's a big occasion for our portfolio. It's a big occasion for consumers. So we love to show up in a contextually relevant way. And with our partners at Amazon, we're able to add some connectivity. And so even though it is still a learned behavior, I think with getting your phone out and snapping the QR code, at least it gains attention and it brings, builds mental availability of the, what you're seeing and the products you're seeing and oh yeah, I can purchase them. Right. So whether you're doing it right there or not, I think it's building that memory bridge connected commerce thought process. Right. And if you are fast enough, you're, you're adding it to your cart. And so we've done that in our football campaign. We've seen increase to new buyers, we've seen increase engagement. We've, we've done some personalization around some of the teams that we have and things like that. And so we continue to evolve there, but leaning in, in a way that, you know, consumers are getting more familiar with engaging with their TB now than they have in the past. So getting ahead of it because the behavior will follow now we see it.
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D
As a benefit as well, especially in health care. And you know, we're, it's, we're not looking for shopability here, but we are looking for consumers to, to look for more information, whether that's going online or up the phone and calling us. And so we've been very intentional with our creative and the senior audience, because we know they prefer to pick up the phone and make a phone call to learn more versus go and fill out a form online. And so we've done things like increase the font size of the phone number over the URL to be able to drive that action. So when we think about that second screen, it's actually a benefit because this is, again, a high trust category where you want to learn more and you want to seek that information, and having that phone handy helps that.
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A
Yeah. Can I also thank all.
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C
Okay, we have 30. 30 seconds. Last. Last thought.
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A
I just want to the. The second screen, the way the platforms have used it to enable sign on. So if you really think about. That's a really good way of thinking about using the second screen for value for the consumer. So food for thought.
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C
Great note to finish on, everyone. This was great. That was super interesting, and y' all did such a good job that I had to cut a couple of really juicy, juicy, awesome questions that we were gonna. We were hoping to have time to talk about, so we'll have to do this again. Amanda, Nydia, Todd, thank you so much for this great conversation. We really appreciate you being here.