Why a Shaky Economy Is Leading to Marketing Cognitive Dissonance with Nielsen: Part 1 | Behind the Numbers

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Behind the Numbers: Why a Shaky Economy Is Leading to Marketing Cognitive Dissonance with Nielsen (Part 1)
Date: November 7, 2025
Host: Marcus Johnson (EMARKETER)
Guests:

• Max Williams (Principal Analyst, EMARKETER)
• Alison Gensheimer (Head of Performance Marketing, Nielsen)
• Matt Devitt (SVP & Head of Advertisers and Agencies, Nielsen)

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Overview

This episode explores why advertisers are reducing their marketing spend amidst economic uncertainty, focusing on how a "shaky" economy is creating cognitive dissonance for marketers. The roundtable of analysts and Nielsen executives discuss the biggest factors behind advertising cutbacks, how the pressure to "prove" marketing performance is reshaping spending decisions and measurement expectations, and what this shift in mindset means for both brands and the channels they use. The conversation blends data, industry reports, and real-world candid perspectives from advertising leaders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reasons for Reduced Ad Spend: Dividing the "Blame Pie"

• Economic Uncertainty (50%)

  • Alison attributes half of the spending cutbacks to macroeconomic challenges—the "level of uncertainty" (04:46), with the U.S. being particularly conservative compared to other regions.
  • Quote (Alison, 04:46):
    “Definitely 50% is that macroeconomic environment that we’re living in. You just can’t pretend like it’s not happening.”

• Pressure to Prove Performance (50%)

  • The other half is the need to demonstrate a direct link between ad spend and measurable outcomes (09:38).
  • Marketers cut “things that are harder to measure… for things that they can… say, ‘Look, we had an impact. Look, we did it.’” (09:38)

• Cognitive Dissonance in Marketing

  • Matt spotlights the contradiction: brands know ad spending provides high ROI, yet still slash budgets.
  • Quote (Matt, 07:18):
    “That’s the dissonance part. Do we believe the ROIs or do we not?”
  • Max reframes this as not a 1:1 tradeoff:
    Quote (Max, 07:33):
    “That framing of it’s not one to one, it’s three to one... the downgrade in outlook is kind of because the economic bumpiness is compelling a lot of advertisers to feel like they have to be more agile and be able to react to things more quickly.”

2. Impact on Channels & Measurement

• Agility vs. Holistic Strategy

  • Max observes the speed of market “gyrations” compels advertisers to prefer channels that offer rapid feedback (08:00–09:00).
    • Traditional channels like print or radio are seeing steep declines because they don’t offer quick results (08:55).
  • Matt warns that “digital gets an outsized amount of spend relative to its reach,” pointing out that reach-heavy channels like audio are underutilized simply because feedback is slower (10:56–12:06).

• Siloed Measurement & its Pitfalls

  • Matt calls out the “silo” problem:
    Quote (Matt, 13:10):
    “How can you tell an accurate measurement story if you’re looking at a specific publisher in a silo?... I am skeptical of that.”

• Evolving Measurement Demands

  • Max describes a paradigm shift: advertisers now want measurement tools that enable “mid-flight course corrections,” not merely post-mortem recaps (14:03).
  • Quote (Max, 14:03):
    “After years of treating ad measurement tools like an airplane’s black box, more marketers are embracing tools that function more like a piece of a plane’s guidance system.”

3. Speed vs. Strategy: The Frequency of Optimization

• Industry Splits on Adjustment Frequency

  • Max shares survey findings: half of marketers revise their spend quarterly or less, half at least monthly; over 20% adjust every two weeks (14:31).
  • Alison: Marketers have “always wanted” rapid optimization, but warns algorithms and learning take time, and single-channel quick wins don’t represent the full consumer journey (17:11–19:10).
    • Emphasizes the importance of cross-channel management and not “getting stuck in that single channel thinking.”

• Planning Versus Reaction

  • Matt provocatively states:
    Quote (Matt, 19:29):
    “If we need to change our mix that often, it suggests we’re not planning very well... sometimes I think we’re overdoing it as marketers.”
  • He supports agile spending for test-and-learn but argues major shifts should be guided by better front-end planning, not constant mid-campaign tweaks (20:04).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Uncertainty Driving Conservatism:

  • Alison (04:46): “You just can’t pretend like it’s not happening. The level of uncertainty is just… causing people to be more conservative.”

• On ROI Blindness:

  • Matt (07:18): “That’s the dissonance part. Do we believe the ROIs or do we not?”

• On Measurement Paradigm Shift:

  • Max (14:03): “More marketers are embracing tools that function more like a piece of a plane’s guidance system.”

• On Siloed Data:

  • Matt (13:10): “How can you tell an accurate measurement story if you’re looking at a specific publisher in a silo?”

• On Optimizing Too Fast:

  • Matt (19:29): “If we need to change our mix that often, it suggests we’re not planning very well.”

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Important Timestamps

• Economic Overview & “Blame Pie”: 04:44 – 09:38
• Cognitive Dissonance / ROI Paradox: 07:18 – 07:33
• Channel Impact & Speed of Measurement: 08:00 – 10:56
• Measurement Silo Pitfalls: 13:10 – 13:53
• Measurement Paradigm Shift: 14:03 – 14:31
• Optimization Frequency Data: 14:31 – 17:11
• Cautions About Over-Optimizing: 19:29 – 20:40

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Tone & Flow

The discussion is candid, jargon-smart but clear, blending data with real marketer experience. The guests (especially from Nielsen) don’t shy from internal contradictions in the industry, and repeatedly call out the challenge of balancing the need for speed with the truth of multi-channel, long-term marketing effects.

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Takeaways for Marketers

• Economic uncertainty is driving both cautious budget slashing and a demand for almost instant ROI proof.
• Marketers face “cognitive dissonance” as they cut budgets for channels—even those empirically tied to sales.
• Short-term optimization is tempting, but holistic, multi-channel strategy is still crucial for success.
• Measurement paradigms are shifting from slow, post-hoc analysis to real-time, actionable feedback—but brands must beware of tunnel vision or “siloed” data.

For those who missed the episode, this discussion is a sharp look at the tensions in modern marketing and adapts industry wisdom into actionable insight.

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Transcript

[A]

In a fast moving market, you have to know what's working. You have to. With Nielsen Ad intel, you'll know the where's, whens and hows of advertising across industries and channels. Maximize your ROI and achieve better results. Stop guessing. Enough already. Start winning. Nielsen Ad Intel. Hey, gang. It's Friday, November 7th. Max, Allison, Matt and listeners, welcome to behind the Numbers new marketed video podcast made by Nielsen. I'm Marcus and joining me for today's conversation, we have three folks. Full house we have with us. That's not a full house. Isn't it Full house five in the artsy. Who knows? Anyway, our principal analyst living in Philly is Max Williams.

[B]

Hey, Marcus.

[A]

Hey, fella. And we have two special guests, both from Nielsen. We have head of performance marketing based in the Bay Area, it's Alison Gensheimer.

[C]

Thanks. Happy to be here. This is fun.

[A]

Absolutely. And we also have with us the SVP and head of advertisers and agencies calling home. Clevel, Calling Cleveland home. Both Matt Devitt.

[D]

Good to be here.

[A]

All right. Because we have some special guests on whose names I'm just learning. We start with a speed intro. All right, so first question, not to Max because people know him from previous episodes. But Alison, I'll start with you first and then Matt, what do you do? In a sentence.

[C]

Very simply, I lead product and performance marketing for Nielsen globally.

[A]

Very nice, Matt.

[D]

So I look after our advertiser and agency clients in the us.

[A]

Very good. And what is one passion of yours outside of work, Alison?

[C]

I'm a boy mom, so I love spending time with my son. He is 9, which is like so much fun because they actually like to do stuff now. So you really like play soccer, basketball, watch movies, play video games? Yes, I do play Minecraft. Yes.

[A]

What's your favorite thing to do?

[C]

I'm sorry?

[A]

What's your favorite thing to do with him?

[C]

Probably like play basketball. We have a lot of fun. Just yeah, one on one or something. It's a good time.

[A]

I like that. I can't imagine my mum playing basketball when I was that that age. She probably would have dunked on me or something though, so I'm glad she didn't.

[C]

He gives me a run for my money now, now. He's fast.

[A]

Very nice. Matt, how about you?

[D]

So not too dissimilar from Alison. My passion is family time which I these days really only have time for. I've got for many people don't know. I have five kids so they take up quite a bit of my time. Not a lot of time for golf.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Get them into it and then you can bring them. Pretend it's family time. Still. Yes, Max, I feel like you've got to say family time now, otherwise it makes you a terrible father.

[D]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Go on, Max. What you got for us?

[B]

I like my family, too. No, that is the real answer. But just to spice it up, I would add that with all the free time that I clearly have as a father of two young children, I like sewing. I try when I can to make clothes for my kids because they don't get upset with me if a seam is a little wobbly or if it's not made to last for a million years. So nice. I'm enjoying that while it lasts.

[A]

Very cool. And you probably have to buy clothes every week, I imagine, because of their ages. They're growing very quick.

[B]

It never stops, which is good. But, yeah, it never stops.

[A]

Very nice. Very nice. All right, all great answers. Well, today's real topic, why advertisers are reducing spend. Part one, A shaky economy leads to marketing cognitive dissonance. All right, so ad spending estimates have been cut this year. A few weeks ago, our Briefings editor, Daniel Konstantinovic noted that the IAB lowered its 2025 U.S. ad spending forecast from 7.33% growth to 5.7, citing macroeconomic pressures and tariffs. But, Alison, I'll start with you, and if you could. I mean, I like this idea of blame pie. It's a game I came up with that basically, when you're giving an answer to something, it makes you kind of attribute shares to things. So if you think it's 100% something, then you just say the one thing. If you think it's kind of 50 50, then you've got two halves because you think it's split between two separate things. Maybe it's, you know, 40% something, 30, 2010. But what do you think are the main factors leading advertisers to cut spend at the moment?

[C]

Oh, that's tricky. Going to make me do math?

[A]

Sorry.

[C]

No. Well, I mean, I think definitely 50% is that macroeconomic environment that we're living in. You just can't pretend like it's not happening. The level of uncertainty is just you causing people to be more conservative. I mean, our research will show that, like, we seem to be more conservative in the US Than a me in Asia are a little bit more optimistic than us. But in general, you know, when you. When you kind of come into this place, when you don't know what's going to happen, the next six, 12, 18 months, like people are going to be a little bit shy about how they're going to do their spend, especially marketing spend, which is easier to move around than some other expenditures.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, and I will say, you know, advertisers are always asked to do more with less. Like, that's just kind of, if you haven't been asked that and I would love to find the company that you're working for because most advertisers are constantly asked to do more with less, especially as we have AI and more technology. They're like, can't you, aren't there ways like cost savings? Like, you know, so I think having to prove that direct link between ad spend and outcomes is just the world we live in.

[A]

Yeah. How about for you?

[D]

Yeah, I mean, I, I think a lot of decision making like this, at least a lot of the stated decision making like what you quoted Marcus, it's, it's uncertainty about the outlook. So if there, if there's uncertainty, you know, to Allison's point, you know, some of the rational decision making will be to take money out of something that is perceived, at least by some organizations, as a bit more discretionary, which again, in many organizations that advertising budget is considered that, but I think that it is considered discretionary and brand building activity in particular. And I think we're going to talk about this. This is, this is the thing that a lot of marketers are fighting within their own organization. And when you look at the measurements, which obviously is a big point of emphasis for Nielsen, when you look at the ROIs and the, you know, the sales responses, why would you ever cut ad spending? I see three dollar to five dollar ROIs. I see like high volume effectiveness. Like if you actually believe those numbers, you're not cutting one to one, you're actually cutting three to one. Right. And so that's where I don't think anybody is rationally making the decision under the assumption that they're cutting three to one.

[A]

One.

[D]

But that's the dissonance parts. Like do we believe the ROIS or do we not? Yeah, right. And that's, that's a, that's something to discuss, sir.

[A]

Yeah, 100%.

[B]

I was just going to say, I really like that framing of it's not one to one, it's, it's three to one. I think that's, that's very clever. I would just to weigh in, I feel like my answer would sort of synthesize what our guests have said and just say that I feel like the downgrade in outlook is kind of because the economic bumpiness is compelling a lot of advertisers to feel like they have to be more agile and be able to react to things more quickly. The thing about the bumpiness that our economy has experienced this year so far is that things are gyrating kind of quickly. Right. It's not just kind of, oh, the economy is slow and everything is kind of sluggish. It's like week to week, the picture changes. And that makes advertisers feel like they have to be on the balls of their feet. And that is especially bad for especially ad sellers that are kind of not as good at telling a story about the impact that they deliver. And you see that in the IAB's numbers, right? I mean, like this chart that we have on the screen right here shows that the IAB has basically asked these questions of its advertisers twice. They asked them at the beginning of the year and they asked them again, I think it was in September. And you see that the channels where the downgrade is steepest are traditional spending areas. Right. It's like especially things like print or radio, which are not as good at kind of delivering information about the impact of that spending quickly. And so if you are a marketer and you're feeling like I have to be able to change what I'm doing very quickly, I'm going to be less patient about investing in channels where I have to wait weeks or even months to find out what happened because of my investment.

[A]

Yeah. Before we. I want to talk about this. Alison, I think I cut you off mid. Mid pie. You said 50% this. Did you have another piece that you think?

[C]

I think the other 50 was really just that. Exactly what we're talking about, the need to prove performance. And so marketers have a tendency to cut things that are harder to measure or have take longer to measure for things that they can walk in in a month or two months and say, look, we had an impact. Look, we did it. And that just kind of keeps the ball rolling. And I think to Matt's point though, if you'd wait, you know, if you look at the bigger holistic picture, you're actually, you know, cutting off the top of your funnel, which means those lower funnel aspects are going to stop performing as well eventually, the more and more you reduce from it, because you're not looking at it holistically, you know. But again, marketers get stuck in those moment to moment, what's happening this month, what's happening this quarter, and they have to Answer questions. And so it's natural that these things happen.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I liked how you framed it before the episode. Max, you were saying, like, because of the shaky economy, advertisers facing more pressure than ever to prove this word, prove their spending is effective and that spending, the ad spending channels that can't effectively and speedily demonstrate the value of investing are there, they are getting penalized for it. Matt, what do you think about this? Have we reached a point where ad sellers have to adapt how they approach measurement? And if so, how are they?

[D]

I think what Max said is totally right in terms of speed. I think actually many advertisers and their agencies are prioritizing speed to giving their executives an answer versus something that's holistic and in many cases actually accurate. And this is partly why digital, I think it gets actually an outsized amount of spend relative to its reach. So like Max actually mentioned audio. So audio is a. Is a advertising format that reaches massive swaths of the population. I think a lot of us who are in urban areas may not necessarily see that because especially New Yorkers, because we don't drive. The vast majority of the country drives and they listen to audio. But it is a slower moving metrics. And to a degree, I think to Max's point, in the. In a world where we need flexibility, we need quick answers, we're willing to just take what a put like say what a publisher is telling us, what does an ad server tell us in terms of delivery? Because I need to justify this thing really fast versus looking at it as a whole pie because the urgency is so high and the demand for flexibility and agility. But I do think we're losing something there because we're not making holistic, data driven decisions.

[B]

I think it's so interesting that when you look across the landscape, the different efforts that are underway to sort of ensure that that holistic picture or really just even like a fair representation of what's happening at the mid and upper parts of the funnel are underway. I remember at this point, a couple months ago now, I was in New York for programmatic I.O. and the CEO of DISCO got up on stage and said, we're going to do free brand lift studies for every publisher that works with us. And I just thought, jeez, that's crazy. I mean, obviously that's partly done for biz dev on their part, but the idea that that's been so neglected that that would be a thing, that there would be lots of publishers in the room to pounce on as an idea reflects how Kind of out of whack some of this stuff has gotten. That struggle to sort of paint a holistic picture of what's going on is.

[D]

A real issue 100%. Jump in Marcus. Like how can you tell an accurate measurement story if you're looking at a specific publisher in Asylum? Like if you have no visibility to what is happening outside of that publisher. Like I'm on multiple sites watching multiple programs throughout the day. The idea that you could from just a pure data science perspective come up with an accurate representation of what is happening to your brand just in a silo. Like that is not. Unless that is all you're doing. Right. Like that's it is. I am skeptical of that.

[A]

Max, I liked how you phrased this in your report. You just put out some research. Measurement Trends H2. Is that what it's titled?

[B]

AD Measurement Trends? Yeah.

[A]

Pro plus subscribers email, you know where to find it. And you said marketers approach to measurement is changing. After years of treating ad measurement tools like an airplane's black box, more marketers are embracing tools that function more like a piece of a plane's guidance system. Rather than providing post mortem campaign data, ad measurement tools are now expected to enable mid flight course corrections. Tell us a bit more about that kind of thinking.

[B]

Yeah, I mean so a lot of this is kind of a function of technology and a lot of it is a function of emerging ad spending channels that have kind of reset marketers expectations. But in the course of doing research for that report, I found this great survey that we did of a bunch of marketers where they asked about the cadence at which they adjust their ad spending based on measurement data. What it shows is that the marketing world is kind of evenly split right now where you have about I think it's 49% of the population does this quarterly or less and then the remaining 51% does it at least monthly. And if you kind of drill down even further, you've got close to or more than a fifth of them do it every two weeks. And on the one hand that's if you're concentrating all your spending just in quick twitch digital environments that makes a ton of sense. But if you're a brand that spends to drive against full funnel outcomes lots of different KPIs, this puts you in sort of a tricky spot right where you, you have to sort of make clear to the stakeholders in your organization that the kind of like weekly readouts of how much you're spending in one digital channel drove some sales on your website is fine, but you Also have to factor in this other stuff that sort of takes a little bit longer to assess and think through and crunch the numbers of. So it's a. We're at kind of an exciting but also sort of like perilous juncture for a lot of marketers where you have this opportunity to think about your spending with more detail and more precision than ever. But you also have to make sure that you're making the case for doing so because otherwise the temptation to get yourself hooked on short term metrics is maybe more acute than it's ever been.

[A]

Yeah, Alison, I'd love to get your take here because to Max's point, this data, I think it comes from us and TransUnion marketing measurement confidence survey we did this year. He's saying half the industry updates his spend quite frequently. It spend mix quite frequently. The other half does not. What happens to the industry as more marketers begin to embrace the opportunity to shift spend around at a higher velocity, as Max phrases it?

[C]

I mean, I think marketers have always wanted to do that, right? Like it's a desired state. We wait anxiously for that report. How did it work? We pull numbers every day, you know, and try to understand like what's happening. Can we do better? Can we optimize in the moment, you know, has always been the kind of desired end states. There's not a marketer out there that wouldn't try to do that. You know, that said, I was a programmatic advertiser for years. You know, the algorithms don't update in a day. It takes a while to learn. It takes a while to have optimizations roll out, you know, and to Matt, and to Matt's earlier point, you know, one publisher, one, we all know that one, we all studied MTA when MTA was still a thing. If it's still, you know, it's kind, kind of coming back. But not one channel, one email, one paid search, one social post does not equal a conversion of it. You know, I've always lived by the mantra seven times, seven different ways to get someone to earn some understand something once, you know, so it's like you don't just drive by and be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go do that thing. I'd never thought about it before. I've seen the one thing I'm moving on, you know, so it's, it's important, important to optimize, but it's also important to not get stuck in that single channel thinking or just what's in front of my face thinking, you know, because that's easy to our earlier conversation. It gets you through the meeting of how is marketing performing? Which is sometimes what marketers are trying to do, you know, but looking holistically and looking across and looking together because that's in fact how the consumer is experiencing it. They're not just going to one thing and we're trying to find them. That was the whole point of programmatic advertising. Find the same consumer across multiple different things in the open web and try to link that together to create that frequency experience. So you know, I think cross channel frequency management is something that we have to consider. We have to continue to think, we have to keep measuring and understanding its importance and optimization. You know, especially I think your other, your 50% that aren't doing it are probably the ones that are spending in more channels than the lower of the 50%. They're probably spending in one or two channels.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Matt, 20% of marketers, according to this data, 20% of marketers updating their spend mix every two weeks. 30 as Max said, monthly. What are your thoughts around this question?

[D]

I think if we need to change our mix that often it suggests we're not planning very well.

[A]

Interesting.

[D]

If I'm being honest, like sometimes I think so I'm not genuine. I think we're over doing it as marketers in terms of just like how much we feel like we need to be optimizing if we can get the right metrics and you know, maybe actually, you know, I think where, where it is appropriate is in test and learning scenarios. So I, I think experimentation is a really good idea if you have really clear hypotheses and what you want to get out of the, you know, the, the measurement experiments.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And so testing and optimizing different things for specific purposes to learn something about maybe a new channel or a new publisher or new platform. I think is really interesting approach and you can carve off spend for that. But if you're making major media investments and it's not clear going in what you, your plan is and you're changing that like so frequently, I mean to me, I think a lot more can be done on the planning side and if you can get your KPIs right up front.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think a perfect note to end this episode. That's all we have time for unfortunately. But thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. Thank you. First to Allison.

[C]

Thanks. It's been fun. Let's do it again.

[A]

Yes. Yes indeed. Thank you to Matt.

[D]

Thanks guys.

[A]

Oh and to Max.

[B]

Always a pleasure, Marcus.

[A]

And of course, thanks to the whole production crew and to everyone for listening to behind the Numbers, new marketer video podcast made possible by Nielsen. We'll be back on Monday, happiest of weekends.