As brands wrap up the year and begin their 2026 planning, the focus turns to one of the biggest areas of controllable spend - media investment.
The Evolution of Media Consumption
As always, the media world continues to evolve and the way people consume media is changing. In 2025 we saw a significant move to CTV from linear TV providing interesting new media opportunities for brands such as CTV homescreen delivering new high impact and attentive reach opportunities. But whilst the consumption patterns change the marketing principals for driving brand growth through media remain the same, reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message, in the right context.
The Power of DICE
Choosing the right media is key but then to really make the campaigns work as hard as possible it is key to leverage the power of data, insights and creative excellence (DICE). Those advertisers that break down the silos between these 3 functions are most likely to maximize the effectiveness of their media spend .
We all know that circa two thirds of media effectiveness comes from the quality of the creative. In today's digital world there are lots of AI tools marketeers can use to better pre-test content and content optimisation to help ensure their ads will perform to the max, before even spending a penny on media. Now advertisers are able to combine unique data solutions to deliver to the same audience across screens to ensure brands are truly reaching the right people with the right message at the right time. It is then key brands apply consistent measurement to learn what really works and evolve their media strategy accordingly.
Breaking Down the Branding vs Performance Divide
We are also seeing that the traditional sequential full funnel model (branding to consideration to conversion) is being replaced by a more fluid model. It is now more important than ever that advertisers stop treating branding and performance in silos and look at the power of harnessing both branding AND performance together.
This is not new, Binet and Fields have long been talking about this since 2013 in their seminal work ‘the long and the short of it’ and a recent Warc study showed brands that combine branding and performance can improve effectiveness by 90%.
To truly maximise the power of both branding and performance it is key that advertisers start to break the internal silos both in their organisations and with their agencies (often set-up based on the structure of their clients).
Marc Zander
There is also a need for creative agility and close collaboration with data and measurement as different creative approaches resonate at different stages of the buying journey. There is still a lot to be learnt in this area and we are finding more and more brands wanting to use flexible full funnel platforms to test their hypotheses of how best to bring branding and performance together.
The Bottom Line
To summarise, when thinking about your media plans for 2026 go back to the basics.
Look to break down the silos between branding and performance and across DICE to ensure your media budgets are working as hard as possible for you.
Teads are Partners of The Marketing Society
Are your campaigns reaching the right people at the right time with the right message in the right context?
Marc Zander
