The Marketing Architects

Episode: The Hidden Cost of Media Flighting

Release Date: March 24, 2026
Hosts: Alena Jasper, Angela Voss (CEO), with Guest Jordan Rossler (VP of Media Analytics)
Topic: Is compressing your ad spend into bursts ("flighting" media) as effective and efficient as marketers believe, or is it leaving money on the table?

Episode Overview

This episode explores the widely used practice of media flighting—intensifying ad spend during peak moments (holidays, launches, promotions), then going dark the rest of the time. Drawing on recent research and hands-on expertise, the Marketing Architects team investigates whether this strategy really boosts returns or undermines efficiency and brand growth. The conversation highlights modern measurement challenges, seasonality, marginal ROI, and how tradition and internal pressures shape flighting habits.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Media Flighting and Its Prevalence

• Definition: Scheduled advertising bursts around "tentpole" moments (e.g., Prime Day, holidays).
• Historical Drivers:
  • Inherited from past operational models—few channels, slow production, crude measurement (02:33).
  • Retail calendars and finance teams favor aligning spend with sales spikes for perceived efficiency (03:28).
• Why It Feels Effective:
  • Brands seek short-term dominance, urgency, and clean attribution (03:37).
  • "It feels powerful to show up big in those moments... there’s financial comfort to it. If sales spike during a holiday or promotion, then concentrating that spend around that window feels efficient." – Angela (A) [03:38]

2. The Hidden Inefficiencies of Peak-Only Spending

• Peak Week Drawbacks:
  • Higher CPMs (cost per mille), more advertiser clutter, and faster saturation—often just more frequency to the same audience at a greater cost (00:00, 03:38).
  • Diminishing returns: "What feels like dominance can actually be diminishing returns." – Angela (A) [04:28]
  • Brand memory decay: Going dark outside peaks undermines long-term brand equity (05:07).
    • "If you disappear for long stretches, you’re not building or refreshing those memory structures, rather you’re letting them decay, and then you have to pay more later to rebuild them." – Angela (A) [04:50]

3. Marginal ROI—The Metric that Matters

• Key Research: Keen Decision Systems found that redistributing ad spend into weeks with better marginal ROI increased efficiency (see article cited at 00:43).
• Marginal vs. Blended ROI:
  • "Most simply, [marginal ROI] is the ROI of your most recent dollar or maybe thinking future, the ROI of your next dollar." – Jordan (C) [06:30]
  • Marketers often overstate effectiveness by looking at average ROI instead of the (often much lower) impact of recent incremental spend.

4. The Realities of Media Buying During Peak Periods

• Competition Drives Cost:
  • "You’re competing against a lot of people... CPMs and media pricing just inherently go up, which eat into your efficiency..." – Jordan (C) [05:37]
• Sharp Spend Increases:
  • Typically lead to softer incremental returns, unless justified by true seasonality (07:13).
  • Exception: Strong, justifiable business seasonality ("fuel on the fire") can offset some diminishing returns (07:13).

5. Measurement Challenges

• Attribution During Peaks:
  • "Trying to isolate what is just the impact of Channel X is really tough... trying to isolate it with some sort of GEO or holdout test... is really the only way." – Jordan (C) [08:02]
  • Click-based attribution models can be misleading due to industry-wide surges.
• Limitations of Large-Scale Studies:
  • Difficulty in cleanly isolating channel impact with so much overlapping activity and spend (09:25).
    • "I would love to be at the TED Talk... because I think when you have that many brands, that many dollars, the cleanness of the data is just really tough." – Jordan (C) [09:25]

6. Shoulder Weeks & Always-On Advertising

• Shoulder Weeks Perform Better:
  • Less competition leads to higher efficiency; always-on strategies may build lasting awareness (10:24).
  • "Linear TV’s mass reach doesn’t go away during shoulder weeks or for an always on campaign." – Jordan (C) [10:57]
• Caveats:
  • Changing consumer timing is not easy; some purchases follow ingrained cycles, making it hard to "pull demand forward" (11:20).

7. Flexibility, Upfronts & Practical Constraints

• Upfront Deals:
  • Commitment to volume (months in advance) reduces flexibility, often locking brands into peak spending (14:07).
  • Irony: Upfronts intended to reduce costs may encourage inefficient, inflexible peak-heavy buys.
• When Flighting Makes Sense:
  • Limited budgets: Condensing spend allows for meaningful measurement (15:32).
  • Episodic/seasonal categories (like tax software) (16:10).

8. Best Practices for Modern Media Planning

• Jordan’s Recommendations:
  • For new-to-TV brands: Consider a 2-3 month "test spike" to gauge impact; if results are strong, shift towards always-on (17:21).
  • For established brands: "I’d often recommend being always on and then just scaling... during that peak business seasonality," as long as you don’t erode CPM efficiency (17:40).
• Angela’s Guidance:
  • "Anchor yourself in sustained efficient reach... then layer in those strategic pulses to really amplify... demand moments." (18:06)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Angela on Inherited Flighting:
  "Over time, I think that operational model became institutional habit... retail calendars made it worse, reinforced it..." [02:33]
• On Diminishing Returns:
  “You’re not necessarily buying more incremental reach. You’re just buying more frequency against the same people at a higher cost… So what feels like dominance can actually be diminishing returns.” – Angela [03:38, 04:28]
• Jordan on Measurement:
  “All the attribution models that are click based or MTA based... are all going to look good because of the insane number of clicks and leads and orders and sales coming in... Geo or holdout test is really the only way.” [08:02]
• Jordan on Peak-Heavy Rigidity:
  “Once those [upfront] dollars are committed, there’s pressure to deploy them in predictable high profile windows. The irony though is that upfronts are meant to drive cost efficiency, but if they reduce that flexibility… it can erode some of what you’re trying to do there.” [14:07]
• Angela on Always-On:
  "If your product or service can and is sold all year... it’s more efficient and effective to find an efficient way to be on as much as you possibly can..." [12:34]
• Jordan’s Practical Test:
  “For a newer brand to TV who may not even know what TV would do for them... condensing those dollars is something we often recommend for those types of clients." [15:32]

Highlighted Timestamps

• 00:00–00:14: Peak week drawbacks—costs, clutter, and diminishing returns.
• 02:33: Why flighting is such a longstanding practice.
• 04:50: Memory decay after going dark.
• 06:30: Marginal ROI explained.
• 07:13: The dangers of sharp spend increases.
• 08:02: Measurement challenges for flighted campaigns.
• 10:57: Strengths and caveats of always-on/shoulder week advertising.
• 14:07: TV upfronts and the rigors of planning.
• 15:32: Flighting for test-and-learn or budget-limited situations.
• 17:21: Building a modern media plan—test, then always-on plus pulse.

Tone and Style

The hosts maintain a conversational, candid, and research-grounded tone—blending expert commentary with analogies, real examples, and a willingness to challenge industry orthodoxy.

Conclusion

Media flighting remains popular due to habit, tradition, and sometimes internal pressures—but rarely delivers the efficiency or dominance brands assume, especially when all competitors crowd the same weeks and measurement is muddied. Marketers are urged to pay closer attention to marginal ROI and consider more balanced, always-on strategies—reserving pulses for special, justifiable occasions, and never losing sight of long-term mental availability.

• "It’s not a straightforward answer... It’s probably a little bit of both. Sometimes it’s okay. It depends on your brand and your situation." – Alena [18:23]

Extra: Fun Closing Segment

(18:42 onwards)
The team shares examples of things they refuse to pay peak prices for—baby gear, vacations, art—offering a light, personal touch to round out the episode.