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The Hidden Cost of Media Flighting
00:21:07
Most brands pile spend into peak weeks. But higher CPMs, more clutter and faster saturation mean you're often paying more to reach the same people. Many of whom would have bought anyway. This episode, Elena, Angela, and VP of Media Analytics Jordan...
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- [00:00]
A
Peak weeks usually mean higher CPMs. They usually mean more clutter, faster saturation. And you're not necessarily buying more incremental reach. You're just buying more frequency against the same people at a higher cost. And some of those people were going to buy anyway.
- [00:15]
B
Marketing Architects hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Alena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects. And I'm joined by my co host Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects.
- [00:32]
A
Hello.
- [00:33]
B
Hello. And we're joined by Jordan Rossler, our Vice president of Media analytics at Marketing Architects.
- [00:38]
C
Hey guys, thanks for having me.
- [00:40]
A
Hey Jordan. Welcome back.
- [00:42]
C
Yeah, good to be back.
- [00:43]
B
We're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news. Always trying to root our opinions and data research and what drives business results. And today we're talking about media flighting or when you run advertising and planned bursts so you turn it on for a period of time and turn it back off and turn it back on again. This is usually around key moments like holidays, product launches or promotions. It's a very typical marketing practice. But is it effective? That is what we're going to discuss today, but I'll kick us off, as I always do, with some research and this episode was inspired by an article we read by Keen Decision Systems for Digiday. The article is titled How a Precise Timing Structure Drives Material Differences in Marketing Efficiency, and it describes how most brands know they need to invest around certain tent pole moments like Prime Day, Back to school holidays. The hard part isn't when to spend, it's how much to spend during the peak versus the weeks around it. This article argues that most marketers look at ROI or their total return, but what really matters is marginal ROI or what you get from the next dollar spent. That's where inefficiencies start showing up. So this article they talk about using data from 400 brands and $42 billion in spend. And they compared actual flighted campaigns to a model where the same total budget was redistributed to the weeks with the highest marginal return. The differences were significant. Linear TV in particular improved dramatically when spend was spread more intelligently across the year instead of overloaded into peak weeks, shoulder weeks, or the weeks before and after big events often delivered higher marginal returns because there was less saturation overall. So timing seemed to be strategy. And that leads us to this question. Could compressing your spend into big bursts leave money on the table? I want to start with just media flighting in general. So Ange, I wanted to ask you, why do you think media flighting has become such a default in marketing? Is this sort of inherited behavior from the past? Is this due to trade promotion calendars? Why do you think it's so popular?
- [02:34]
A
Yeah, I think it's a mix, but most of it is probably inheritance from the past. Almost all marketing used to be organized around these campaigns where you had a product launch, a retail promotion, a holiday push. You built this big creative idea and you ran it hard and then it went dark. And at that time we were living in a world of very limited channels, long production cycles, pretty blunt measurements. So media was bought in chunks, creative was built in chunks, and that spending then happened in chunks. And over time, I think that operational model became institutional habit by marketers and then retail calendars made it worse, reinforced it back to school, Black Friday, tax season. Brands learned to concentrate spend around these tent pole moments because that's when sales spiked and finance teams liked it because it aligned media dollars to these revenue peaks, which I'm sure we'll get into.
- [03:28]
B
So what do you think brands, and they wouldn't be doing this if they didn't believe they were gaining something from it. What do you think they're gaining and where do you think that might sometimes not be reality?
- [03:37]
A
I think brands believe they're gaining impact through that concentration. The logic is something like if we compress our spend into a short window, we'll dominate the attention during that time, we'll create urgency, we're going to own the moment. And so it feels powerful to show up big in those, Mom. And I think too there's financial comfort to it. If sales spike during a holiday or a promotion, then concentrating that spend around that window feels efficient. You're just aligning the dollars to the demand. But from an attribution standpoint, that can become complicated. But I think it looks cleaner. You turn it on, your sales move and then you turn it off. I think the belief starts to break down when everyone else is doing the same thing. Peak weeks usually mean higher CPMs. They usually mean more clutter, faster saturation, and you're not necessarily buying more incremental reach. You're just buying more frequency against the same people at a higher cost than some of those people were going to buy anyway. So what feels like dominance can actually be diminishing returns. It can feel successful, but it might not be. And I think another place it breaks down is in memory. Brands grow through that mental availability. And if you disappear for long stretches, you're not building or Refreshing those memories structures, rather you're letting them decay and then you have to pay more later to rebuild them. So concentration can create short term noise. It can undermine that long term efficiency if you're not careful.
- [05:07]
B
Yeah, I remember when he talked with Dale Harrison at Brand Week, he showed that graph of how quickly memory declines and it was spooky. It's like pretty quick. After turning off your advertising, a lot of those like brand awareness metrics just drop. Jordan, thank you again for joining us. You're really a great guest for this topic because you have an expertise in both media and analytics and specifically in tv. So I wanted to start there. Angela talked a little bit about these sort of peak weeks and I'm curious from a media buying perspective, what happens to effectiveness when everyone piles in to those weeks to buy media?
- [05:37]
C
Yeah, typically to be able to pile in, you're competing against a lot of people for that media supply. And so the increased demand increases the price to clear. And so CPMs and media pricing just inherently go up which eat into your efficiency and effectiveness. Unless you, your effectiveness is also really jumping up and getting a boost in those weeks as well. You really need to be cognizant of what is the landscape doing and is your peak week aligned with a lot of other brands peak weeks which will inherently really increase the demand and the pricing to be on in those weeks?
- [06:10]
B
Yeah. So it's got to really be worth it if you're going to, if you're going to invest during that time. So the article, it talked about marginal ROI and why that matters more than what they called blended roi. When brands are deciding whether they should keep spending on media. Could you explain in this article how they're looking at marginal ROI to us in simple terms, please.
- [06:31]
C
I would say most simply it's the ROI of your most recent dollar or maybe thinking future the ROI of your next dollar. Rather than saying what's my total revenue over all the total dollars I've spent, you can get kind of a jaded view of if those initial dollars were really strong, your all in number still looks really strong, but you might be hardly getting any incremental return. We know there's a lot of dim return in marketing and so that marginal ROI kind of says what have my most recent dollars been doing? Is it still worth it for me to be on right now? Or are we actually losing money and getting really soft performance on our most incremental budget?
- [07:05]
B
So then when you look at like real TV campaigns, what typically happens to those sort of marginal returns as spend Increases in a short window.
- [07:13]
C
Yeah. Typically a sharp increase in spend results in much softer performance. I will say the caveat there, the exception is if you are a really seasonal brand or you have that massive peak and you're able to pour fuel on the fire with those media dollars in that peak spend, you can offset the expected diminishing returns there and it truly is fuel on the fire. But generally speaking, unless you have a great business case or seasonality case to be able or to be spiking spend, it'll almost always result in softer performance.
- [07:47]
B
So if I then if I was a brand and I'm overloading or I'm spending a lot in peak weeks and I want to evaluate whether that makes sense for me, what specifically should I look for in the data? So what kind of signals would you look for to see if marginal dollars are not working anymore?
- [08:03]
C
Yeah, the marginal dollars is the key to answering that question. Right. Those would likely be performing softly due to relative weeks if your dollars weren't working. I will say though, measuring the actual effect and impact of those dollars is extremely difficult. As an guy, it's these weeks just give us a headache because you know that a business is going to be spiking, all other channel spend is going to be spiking, industry and category spend is going to be spiking. And so trying to isolate what is just the impact of Channel X is really tough. All the attribution models that are click based or MTA based, any of that stuff are all going to look good because of the insane number of clicks and leads and orders and sales coming in the door. And so trying to isolate it with some sort of GEO or holdout test where you can truly do some sort of AB comparison is really the only way to be able to evaluate are my dollars from Channel X that we have in one set of markets and not the other actually driving incremental return during those weeks.
- [09:07]
B
It sounds like it's hard to measure. I think before we started recording you were asking about this article in itself and wondering how they were measuring it. Right. You thought that sounds pretty difficult to do at that type of scale. Right. Because they looked at so many brands and campaigns that would be really 400 brands, $42 billion in spend. Do you think that's possible?
- [09:25]
C
I don't want to say it's impossible, but I would love to to be at the TED Talk or whatever of how they did this because I think when you have that many brands, that many dollars, the cleanness of the data is just really tough. To get isolated variables where you're truly looking at the impact of one channel. Because like I say, in an ideal situation, as an analytics guy, it's like, hey, this holiday season can you only scale spend in one channel? And we'll see how that compares to what forecast would have been. But practically speaking, from a business standpoint, we've worked with so many brands where they say, quote unquote, our year is Black Friday. It all comes down to that one day. And so we can't really afford to mess around with incrementality testing in those days. You need to just go, all systems go. And so around these peak weeks, I'm guessing a lot of those dollars and brands probably weren't isolating variables in really clean ways, which just makes it really messy to actually see whether the peak weeks or the shoulder weeks or spike spend versus always on spending is actually better or not.
- [10:24]
B
Yeah, that's a good point. That when it's your super bowl, you're not really going to want to do some sort of GEO holdout test exactly in that moment. So speaking of those shoulder weeks, that is one thing the article found is that the time leading up to and following big TV moments, they thought those shoulder weeks tended to perform better than the concentrated moment of spend in advertising, which maybe that's even hard to tell. But it made me wonder, do you think that this article and that finding is a proof point for more always on advertising, maybe these peak moments, are they really giving us the level of return that they need to.
- [10:58]
C
Yeah, it's honestly a very complicated question. It really does depend on your specific category and the consumer behavior of that category. But here's what we do know. Linear TVs mass reach doesn't go away during shoulder weeks or for an always on campaign. And if that is your kind of North Star, that brand awareness, getting in front of as many people with your message as you can. Obviously, obviously being on during weeks that aren't as competitive, net net is a win to get on in front of those people during those more efficient weeks. However, for some brands that do experience that massive seasonal boost, we talk with certain brands about trying to pull that demand forward and get it coming in before the peak of a Black Friday or Christmas season. And it sounds great in theory, but the reality is consumer behavior, a lot of the time it's kind of like turning a barge. It's a slow moving ship and actually pulling that demand forward multiple weeks ahead of the season. Rush for some of those Q4 type products, things like that is a Lot easier said than done. And the reality is the performance of those weeks hasn't always aligned with expectations and been a good idea for advertisers. You kind of need to look at a holistic view of how many dollars did we spend before and during the peak? And did some of that pre spend prime the pump a little bit for an even better peak week. But some traditional attribution modeling that's only looking 714 days out isn't always capturing when that demand comes in. And so you really need to be clear about what is your success met? How are you going to measure it? What time frame are you going to be looking at? And then you can, I think more easily determine is a peak week versus shoulder week strategy better for your brand?
- [12:34]
B
I would say too.
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A
Jordan, wouldn't you agree that what you're trying to avoid as a marketer is if your product or service can and is sold all year, you're not something like tax software. Of course we all can buy tax software all year, but we don't. There's no reason it doesn't make sense. But if you're something that of course during a holiday period your sales spike, as do a lot of other brands, but you do have sales that come in all year. You don't want to be only spending during the holiday months. It's more efficient and more effective, I think we've seen with our data to find an efficient way to be on as much as you possibly can because you are building that mental availability which should help you return a better return during the holiday season.
- [13:17]
C
100% agree with that. I think your spend should mirror your demand throughout the year. And if you are a brand that has revenue coming in all year round, you should be spending in accordance with that. And sure, if there is a spike then you could scale accordingly through Q4 or whatever seasonal peaks you do. See, the tax software is a good example of like people are really only thinking about that January, February, March. And so that type of more peak spend probably makes more sense. And that's what we see from a
- [13:42]
B
lot of those brands right now that makes sense. I think ideally it would be nice if brands could have some flexibility too to change because sometimes demand might spike for a totally different reason. Sometimes a bad reason like a pandemic or something like that. And all of a sudden you want to be be more flexible with when you spend and see what works. But ang TV in particular is not known for being flexible. How do things like upfront those traditional processes in television complicate an Always on strategy.
- [14:08]
A
Yeah, I think it's just complicated because it introduces rigidity into, to Jordan's point, what should be a marginal return Conversation and linear TV brands often commit dollars months in advance to secure pricing and inventory gains. And depending on their market and what their competitors are doing, it can be smart to help them lower CPMs and premium placements. But once those dollars are committed, there's pressure to deploy them in predictable high profile windows. And that's where that tension shows up. If your investment's already locked, the temptation to align it with these peak cultural or retail moments just feel safer and it's defensible internally. I think that's a lot of where this comes in and where it can get complicated internally inside a business. The irony though is that upfronts are meant to drive cost efficiency, but if they reduce that flexibility and push you towards peak heavy planning, then it can erode some of what you're trying to do there from an efficiency standpoint.
- [15:04]
B
Yeah, it's an interesting point that most of the time you're going into the upfronts because you want to get that great inventory that might be sold out. But then if you're paying so much for it beforehand, it's kind of like where's the, is the benefit going to be worth it? I know we just talked a little bit about sometimes flighting makes a lot of sense. There are certain products and services like tax services that you're really not going to buy every month out of the year. But what about other times? Like what conditions would justify going dark and then coming back and sort of a pulsing or flighting strategy?
- [15:32]
C
Yeah, I think when you have a more limited budget for a given channel like tv where measurability is key and you may not be able to measure only a few thousand dollars a week if you were to spread that across the year, but you could condense it all into a 4, 6, 8, 12 week period, you generate more of a spike. To actually measure that incrementality in some sort of type model or hold out a B type model, I'd say that makes a lot of sense, especially for a newer brand to TV who may not even know what TV would do for them and don't have that pre existing budget to dedicate for it, they're shooting one shot at TV to see if it works. And condensing those dollars is something that we often recommend for those types of of clients.
- [16:11]
A
I think too we just talked about a little bit, but if your business is episodic, I think those are Other cases where it might not make sense to be on always. One thing you mentioned, Jordan earlier just related to measurement. When you have a quote unquote super bowl season, it can become a lot of pressure in that moment to return as much as we possibly can during that window. But I do think in terms of the brands that we've seen do holiday well, they are allocating the majority of their budget to a sales driving agenda during that window, but also have a learning agenda, you know, that might be a smaller portion, it might be AB geotest holdout so that they can take that learning and apply it to the next holiday season and over time just become smarter and smarter in terms of that strategy.
- [16:54]
B
Speaking of strategy, we talked a lot today about measurability and sometimes how these flighting tests. One reason to do it could just be in order to get further investment. You have to be able to prove that something worked and sometimes that can be a way to do it. So if we're thinking about just overall strategy, if you were building like a 2026 brand media plan from scratch, how would you approach investments to make sure that they're not only impactful to your business but also measurable?
- [17:21]
C
Yeah, I think for me, if I'm a brand that's new to tv, kind of like I was just saying, I think I'd be looking to design an initial two or three month test to gauge readability and the impact on my business. And if we're seeing amazing results, maybe that three months just becomes an evergreen campaign at the end of that. But, but I think if I'm a brand that's more established in TV like we were talking about earlier, it comes down to your goals. I'd often recommend being always on and then just scaling that and stepping on the gas a little bit more during that peak business seasonality just to ensure that you're capturing all the existing demand that is there during your key season. As long as you're not sacrificing CPM efficiencies in such a meaningful way that you're canceling out those gains just in order to be on there, I think that's the one thing to be aware of.
- [18:07]
A
I think that's good advice. I think anchor yourself in sustained efficient reach. Like we have to remember that's where we need to start. Then model those marginal response curves then to Jordan's point, layer in those strategic pulses to really amplify those real demand moments.
- [18:23]
B
It's not a straightforward answer in conclusion of whether you should flight media or not. That's like, everything. It's probably a little bit of both. Sometimes it's okay. It depends on your brand and your situation. Well, this has been great, Jordan, thanks for joining us today. Learned a lot, and I want to wrap us up with something a little more fun. What is something that you refuse to pay peak pricing for?
- [18:43]
C
For me, I recently became a dad five months ago, and I would just say baby stuff in general, I refuse to pay, like, full or peak price for because of how many people are just giving stuff away. On Marketplace, if you're willing to even look for just five or ten minutes, you can find strollers and furniture and just all the gear you could possibly want for, like, five, 20 bucks, whatever the case. And you're saving tons and tons of money. So that. That's my answer.
- [19:10]
A
That's a great one. Plus, you're only using it for the short windows of use.
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C
Exactly.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah. Mine would be just, like, airfare and vacations in general. I really struggle to pay peak for sometimes.
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B
That's hard to predict, though. I feel like. Like, how exactly not to pay peak pricing for that kind of stuff.
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A
It is, but I think part of it for me is I don't want to go when everyone else goes.
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B
Okay, so you're avoiding, like, those busy. Really? That's.
- [19:35]
A
That's part. It's the cost and the craziness that I'm just like, you know what? No, we're opting out. If we're gonna go, we're gonna go somewhere. No one's going.
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B
Yeah, man. That's a rough feeling when you, like, walk into security and you just see, like, the giant lines. You're like, oh, no.
- [19:49]
A
Yeah, I know.
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B
Everyone had the same idea.
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C
What about you?
- [19:52]
B
So mine is also something that I found on Facebook Marketplace, which is art, and I really respect art. This is not that I don't think art is valuable or that you should pay, like, full prices for art. I just can't. So I've had a lot of fun when we got our home using Facebook Marketplace to find, like, really nice art pieces that people just don't want anymore. And I'm sure it's not something that's that nice, but I can't tell the difference. So I'm not gonna be buying something that's super expensive because I just can't tell what's nice and what's not. But thank goodness for Facebook Marketplace.
- [20:23]
A
It has been a game changer online. Garage sailing. I just. I love garage sailing. It's such. Such an amazing, fun hunt for whatever you're going to find that day. Now we can do it online.
- [20:36]
B
Awesome. All right, Jordan, thanks again for joining us. That was great.
- [20:39]
C
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [20:41]
B
That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor De Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn. And if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build. Great marketing. My dog just stinks today. She's just right next to me, just like Marketing Architects.