The Marketing Architects

Episode: Reach More, Waste Less: The Math Behind Smarter TV Advertising
Date: December 23, 2025
Host: Angela Voss (Marketing Architects CEO)
Guest: Dale Harrison

Episode Overview

This episode explores the pivotal role of "reach" in TV advertising, challenging prevailing marketing assumptions that favor targeting and creative over broad audience exposure. Anchored in research and real-world marketing effectiveness data, Angela Voss and Dale Harrison dissect why maximizing reach is the most powerful lever for brand growth, how brands often undermine themselves with over-targeting, and the math and models behind maintaining brand memory in prospective buyers. Practical strategies for achieving efficient, accountable reach in both linear and connected TV are shared, alongside actionable advice on measurement and optimization.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Principle of "Reach Primacy"

(00:43 – 05:55)

• Dale Harrison explains the often-contrarian view that reach, not creative, drives marketing effectiveness.
  • "Reach, not creative, is the strong force in marketing." (00:43)
  • The correlation between ongoing reach and market share.
  • No one buys a brand they don't know or remember.
  • Emphasizes maximizing exposure to the largest fraction of potential future buyers.
  • The concept of "surface area of effectiveness": Effectiveness = creative efficacy × number of exposures.

Notable Quote:
"A 2x better creative is not going to beat 100x greater reach."
— Dale Harrison (01:38)

Why Reach Matters More Than Creative

• Expanding reach has a bigger growth impact than incremental improvements to creative.
• High reach amplifies even small creative gains.
• Low reach stifles growth, even with much better creative.

Reach Consistency and Brand Memory

• Reach should be ongoing, not a campaign "burst."
• Importance of always-on campaigns due to brand recall decay.
• The 95/5 rule: Most buyers are not in market at any given time; brand recall matters only when they are.

Notable Quote:
"Reach is what is implanting the brand memories or refreshing the brand memories. But those memories are being forgotten. We're in this dynamic equilibrium between reach and forgetting."
— Dale Harrison (04:09)

• Adstock curves show that ad impact decays quickly (days to months depending on the category).
• In B2B, inter-purchase periods can be years, making persistent reach even more critical.

2. TV Reach in the Era of Digital Targeting

(08:11 – 11:20)

Contrasting Linear and Connected TV

• Angela Voss discusses how digital approaches have led to over-targeting in TV.
  • Linear and CTV are similar to consumers, but often over-segmented by marketers.
  • Brands often launch TV after hitting digital scale limits, but bring niche targeting mindsets that constrain reach.

The Danger of Hyper-Targeting

• Over-targeting limits exposure to light buyers, who are essential for category growth.
  • "Half of all Coke buyers buy just one or two cans or bottles per year." (10:48)
  • B2B marketers often make this mistake, but buying decisions usually involve 6–10 people.

Notable Quote:
"Hyper targeting is agreeing to pay more to ignore your future customer set."
— Angela Voss (16:25)

Rethinking Frequency

• Debate: Is it better to reach a small audience frequently or a larger audience infrequently?

  • Response rate drops with each repeated exposure.
  • Ideal is to reach as many as possible at least once.

• Over-frequency, especially in CTV, signifies poor reach strategy.

3. Cost and Efficiency in TV Advertising

(12:00 – 14:30)

TV Isn't Always "Too Expensive"

• Perceptions of TV as unaffordable are challenged.
  • Super Bowl spots are a unique case ($8 million for 30 seconds in 2025), not the norm.
  • CTV can have higher CPMs due to layers of tech and targeting fees.

How to Reduce TV Costs

• Use the full breadth of inventory, not just a few networks or publishers.
  • Audience-based buying over program-based buying improves cost efficiency.
• AI-driven buying has transformed access and efficiency:
  • Dale and team developed a platform (2018) that buys media at 1/5th the scatter market cost.

4. Measurement and Accountability in TV

(14:30 – 16:45)

TV’s Measurement Challenges

• TV is hard to measure, topping surveys for both linear (hardest) and CTV (third hardest) attribution.
• TV is a full-funnel channel, driving both short-term sales and long-term brand building.

Best Practices for Measurement

• Multiple measurement models per client—no fewer than 10 at once:
  • Spot-based attribution, ACR technology, foot traffic data, MMM, geo-holdouts, etc.
• Beware of oversimplified or in-platform ROAS numbers; focus on triangulated, incremental impact.
• Every model is wrong, but some are useful—context matters.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Dale Harrison: "Reach is not a number, reach is a rate...we need to continuously reach people over time." (03:33)
• Angela Voss: "Most brands are driven in terms of growth by light buyers...yet we become a bit obsessed with heavy buyers." (10:25)
• Dale Harrison: "If you turn off marketing, you see brand recall start to drop back down...there are time delays." (07:41)
• Angela Voss: “Ideally we would reach everyone once. With the realities of marketing, it’s very hard to do that today.” (11:45)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:43 – Reach Primacy explained; “reach, not creative, is the strong force”
• 02:15 – Surface area of effectiveness; incremental impact of creative vs reach
• 03:00 – The necessity of consistent, always-on reach vs. one-off campaigns
• 04:10 – Brand recall decay and the dynamic between reaching and forgetting
• 05:20 – Modeling reach, forgetting, and equilibrium in brand memory
• 08:11 – Digital targeting mindsets restricting TV’s true reach
• 09:35 – Importance of light buyers and broad targeting; Coca Cola case
• 10:50 – Reach vs. frequency; why over-frequency is often a mistake
• 12:35 – The cost of TV advertising; CTV vs. linear and strategies to lower costs
• 14:50 – TV measurement challenges and deploying multiple models
• 16:25 – Angela’s “hyper-targeting” quote and the case for broad reach

Key Takeaways

1. Pursue Reach Over Narrow Targeting:

• Broad, consistent reach is the most effective driver of brand growth. Hyper-targeting may waste budget and limit brand exposure.
• Reach should be thought of as an ongoing process to refresh brand memory, not a one-time metric.

2. Rethink TV Buying and Channel Costs:

• TV doesn’t have to be cost-prohibitive. Efficiencies can be found by broadening inventory access and using AI-based buying.

3. Measure Across Multiple Models:

• No single attribution model captures TV's full effect. Use a multi-model, triangulation approach for performance measurement.

Final Words

Angela concludes by emphasizing the actionable blueprint:

• Widen your reach, resist the urge to hyper-target, investigate media cost structures, and layer measurement approaches.

“All models are wrong. Some are very useful.” (16:45)

If you want to connect or learn more, Angela invites listeners to stop by the activation area or connect on LinkedIn.