As featured in The Drum.
Twelve years ago, I wrote a piece for Campaign about the scale and value of a Super Bowl spot when the estimate for a 30-second spot was $4m, and the US viewership was 108m. Fast forward to 2026 and the same spot is fetching a price tag of $8m for an audience of 128m. In an industry where costs double, yet the audience remains fragmented, how can a brand justify – and make the most of – peak audience viewing with effective, integrated, creative marketing?
Big moments only work when media and creative work together
First things first, engaging media and creative partners early to respectfully thrash it out is crucial. The best work is delivered when those making the ads know the audience targeting capabilities and format nuances, and when those planning, activating, and optimising know they have a full tool kit to play with. And also through rigorous research with real people to establish the concepts, storyboard, and refine through edits. Nobody wants to be the next Pepsi marketing team wondering how on earth that Kendall Jenner ad got made. Looking at this year’s Super Bowl ads, some consistent themes persevere – nostalgia (Xfinity’s nice take on Jurassic Park), touching family moments (Google’s Gemini), humour and celebrities (Pringles featuring Sabrina Carpenter) and, of course, animals (the Puppy Bowl – not strictly an ad, but one of my annual highlights).
Audience-first planning beats channel bias every time
Secondly, ensure audience-centric channel-agnostic planning so that the peak primetime spot is central to the campaign, but not the sole focus of it. Instead of letting share deals or any form of personal bias influence key decisions, tailor each campaign – we all know how easy it is to be guilty of the ‘sample size of one’ of wanting to see your own work out in the wild, but don’t let this over-ride genuine audience planning. As an example, when the median age of UK media agency staff is early 30s, and newspaper readers are over 55, is it any wonder to see that print is highlighted as a highly effective but under-used channel?
Once you know how to reach your audience beyond that hero spot, make sure you have the depth and breadth of assets to engage with them meaningfully over time through different touchpoints. Rather than thinking of ads as ‘single use’, instead interrogate the longevity potential, and don’t skimp on post-production and edits.
Consumers are spending more time online than ever but attention spans, especially for the younger generations, are finite, so online campaign metrics and their associated outcomes live and die by the algorithm. Don’t get to the end of campaign report and wonder whether that one extra asset that spoke to a slightly different audience authentically or the one that was more platform-native could have made all the difference. AI-powered platforms can help iterate, but these are still tools not a full asset solution. Human creativity and talent are essential to avoid the risk of sinking into the swamp of AI slop. Channel 4’s recent ‘Educating Yorkshire’ campaign was a brilliant example of taking a core central AV story, and delivering it cross-channel, creatively to balance reach with consistency to drive overall impact.
Mass moment marketing can’t be judged in a 20-minute attribution window
Next comes media. As a planner with 15 years’ experience, this is my home turf and my mantra is test, measure, iterate, test, measure scale. In challenging macro-economic climate of rising costs and fluctuating consumer confidence, marketers have their work cut out justifying, defending, and business-casing investment and there is the growing need for marketing to be recognised as a profit centre, not a cost centre. Budgets are finite which means you need to be confident that you are mapping out the right targeting, the right metrics, and right channels. Know what to test, as well as where, when and how. Build out a measurement framework that plays to the strengths and capabilities of different channels.
Regardless of how you decide to test, what’s imperative is that you structure it with clear guardrails to pre-empt and clarify any later ambiguity – agree one single hypothesis, conduct due diligence on setting regions (size, composition, media consumption, historic behaviours), set appropriate KPIs, plan a campaign that delivers to robust thresholds in spend and reach and frequency, and be clear (and patient!) on what metrics will move over what timescale. While you can get a clear read on a low-level A/B test within days, meaningful brand and conversion uplift can take up to a year so patience and stakeholder stewardship is a must.
Finally, don’t go to all this effort with external agency partners, only to fall at the final hurdle due to internal misalignment or mixed priorities. Strive for integration within internal departments and functions to prioritise frictionless user journeys at all costs. Start those conversations early so that you can coordinate all marketing efforts around this key campaign including PR, influencers, CRM and promotions. Align paid, owned, earned and point the full might of the Google stack towards what you want someone to do.
If you have different departments or sub-brands, make sure your campaign is prioritised across Demand Gen, PMAX, Search and SEO. Don’t let internal silos and structures mean you end up bidding against yourself and creating an uphill battle for your efficiency, effectiveness and consumers. Remember that most people aren’t in market at any given moment and usually don’t care about your brand or your advertising, so minimise any barriers to whatever it is you’re asking them to do. Don’t invest all that time and effort, only for your website to crash…take note AI.com!
Applying big-game thinking to media planning
A lot has changed in the past twelve years, but despite repeated claims of “TV is dead”, it’s clear that the AV marketplace doesn’t stand still – it fragments, it evolves, but it still pulls in audiences. How we speak to those audiences also evolves, as discussions and debates continue on how to make the most of modern AV, with everything from ITV Men’s 6 Nations new scrum ad break format and Youtube’s flirting with BARB on how it wants to be measured The challenge for advertisers is to be there in the big moments with impactful creative for the masses, but to also show up in other moments and media with ‘matching luggage’ creative to strike the balance of building mental availability overall while resonating authentically to different audiences. With the right agency partners, some creativity, and a not insignificant amount of drive and integration, the future looks bright for 2026 and beyond. The next big moment to look at is the FIFA World Cup 2026, but smart brands will be looking ahead to the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup as women’s sport continues to gain eyeballs and investment, as it rightfully should, so start planning now!
P.S. For anyone craving nostalgia that harks back further than 2014, take a look at the recent edition of ‘Ideas We Love’ from Tom Darlington and Matt Prentis, to be escorted back to the glory days of MTV via ‘MTVRewind’.
