As new technologies make it easier than ever to place a “buy now” button in front of a consumer, the pressure to demonstrate immediate return on investment is immense.
But could this short-term focus risk undermining the long-term work of brand building?
This is the view of Brendon Volpe, chief strategy officer US at UM Worldwide, who argued that agencies must help clients simplify their view of the journey and resist the industry’s own tendency toward fragmentation.
Bridging the fragmentation gap
For advertisers trying to navigate the distinct environments of CTV and social media, an integrated approach is essential. According to Volpe, these channels do not have the traditional barriers to entry of legacy media, but they come with their own complex rules of engagement that demand tight collaboration between media and creative teams.
“With CTV, managing frequency isn’t just about buying CPMs,” Volpe said. “It’s a premium product where frequency is often very tight. So when you’re managing your reach curves, you have to think a little differently about how much exposure you’re giving to your audience and how frequently your audience is going to tune out from your creative. That also means you have to be working with your creative agency very tightly.”
Social platforms present an even more nuanced challenge, where success is dictated not by reach but by an algorithm’s assessment of attention, he said. “Your media team and your creative team have to be super tightly connected so that when you’re developing that work, it’s really closely tied to their interests and fandoms that they’re a part of within those communities,” Volpe explained.
Brand is the bulwark in retail media
The rise of retail media networks, far from diminishing the need for brand building, actually highlights its critical importance, Volpe argued.
“If you’re searching for Nike as opposed to running shoes, you’re going to win because people are already foreclosing a ton of options when they search for a brand first,” Volpe said. “In one sense, the power of brand has never been more important than in a retail media environment.” Yet, the proximity to the sale creates incentives to focus on short-term performance, a bias that can ultimately depress a brand’s long-term effectiveness.
To counter this, Volpe advocates for simplifying the funnel into two clear functions
- Demand generation.
- Demand capture.
“If we’re biased towards that bottom of the funnel focus, we’re going to lose penetration, we’re going to shrink that overall demand universe,” he said. “It really forces brands to stop over-complexifying their marketing and focus on just, ‘All right, do people care about us enough when they’re in market?’”
The pleasing bias of AI
The tension between selling and persuading is particularly acute in CTV, where shoppable and interactive capabilities are rapidly advancing. The opportunity is significant, with US CTV ad spending projected to reach $33.35 billion in 2025, according to eMarketer.
However, Volpe cautioned that the primary power of the medium currently lies in brand building, not direct sales.
“It’s going to be so easy to put your product front and center with a price and a ‘buy now’ button,” he said. “It’s a focus on selling as opposed to persuading. The power of CTV is really in building brand, not necessarily selling right now.”