This post was created in partnership with Marketing Architects
TV can still offer the best bang for your brand-building buck when it comes to broad reach. But what’s the point of trying to reach a mass audience at a time when hyper-targeting is all the rage?
During a Brandweek 2025 session co-hosted with Marketing Architects, marketing effectiveness consultant Dale Harrison and Angela Voss, CEO of Marketing Architects, gave the audience a crash course in TV advertising and the value of broad reach. From the poor ROI of hyper-targeting to misconceptions about CTV advertising costs, these two industry leaders crunched the numbers on TV campaign effectiveness.
TV marketing math
Harrison opened the discussion on why reach is an undervalued metric for TV advertising. “The level of ongoing reach is the metric that corresponds most closely with share of market,” he said. “The idea is that no one buys a brand that they don’t remember or they don’t know, and so a lot of what we have to do in marketing is to reach as large a fraction of future buyers as possible.”
Next, he shifted to the concept of campaign effectiveness, which is the product of two factors: How effective the creative is at persuading a single individual, multiplied by the number of people exposed to that creative. “One of the things that we see is that with large reach, even small improvements in creative effectiveness have a magnified effect, because we’re spreading that out over many more potential future buyers,” Harrison explained.
But for brands with smaller reach, large improvements in creative effectiveness tend to have little impact because they reach so few people. “It’s really an argument for the importance of trying to achieve as broad a reach as possible … meaning the largest fraction of potential future buyers,” shared Harrison.
From there, he shared the harsh reality that consumers often forget about brands over time, so even if you reach them once, it’s not enough. “It doesn’t matter that you reached them a year ago or two years ago,” Harrison said. “What matters is that you reach them often enough and consistently enough that when they come in-market, you’re going to be able to come to mind.” This, he added, is what gives your brand a reasonably good chance of being chosen.
Ultimately, your goal is to stay top-of-mind, so a portion of the market remembers you when they’re ready to buy. “It takes time to be able to reach enough people that you’ve got a high level of recall, and then to be able to continuously re-reach them before they forget,” Harrison pointed out.
