Tackling the Media Mix: How Advertisers Can Overcome Fragmentation in 2025
Originally published by ANA at:
https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/ii-2025-04-tackling-media-mix
By Tom McLoughlin
April 11, 2025
TV advertising is more fragmented than ever, which has increased complexity for advertisers to get the media mix right. Viewers are consuming content across a fragmented ecosystem that spans linear TV, virtual cable, and streaming platforms, each with its own set of challenges and opportunities. To capture audience attention in 2025, advertisers must rethink their approach — balancing reach with precision, embracing multi-layered strategies, and leveraging emerging opportunities to maximize performance.
Here’s how to ensure you’re mastering the mix.
Focus on Multi-Layered Strategies
With media fragmentation increasing, advertisers must embrace multi-layered strategies to maximize reach and impact. Currently, most video campaigns include a linear and streaming component. Today’s advertisers must consider adding additional layers to their media mix to maximize reach and hyper-target those consumers who are most likely to be in-market to purchase their product or service. The pieces to consider include:
Traditional Linear TV: This is still a primary driver of reach, both nationally and locally.
Virtual Cable: Offering a cable experience via a digital app, virtual cable represents an important shift for reaching cord-cutters who transition from traditional cable to digital alternatives, which are often skinnier bundles and include more targeting opportunities.
Streaming: Streaming is a must-buy to extend the reach of a linear execution with enhanced targeting capabilities.
Addressable Overlays: Addressable enhances targeting by layering first-party and third-party data on top of linear and streaming buys.
Audience-Based Buys: Audience-based strategies are available across linear and streaming; they provide strong reach using data to inform the ad placements.
Local Sponsorships: Integrating an advertiser’s logo, billboards, content, and commercial messaging into local news or events can further enhance campaign effectiveness.
Attribution: This includes tying in ad exposure data and matching true business outcomes like web visits or sales data so the efficacy of the campaign on exposed versus unexposed households can be understood.
The most effective local and national campaigns in 2025 will consist of a media mix that includes all the above strategies in one cohesive execution. This layered approach requires close collaboration among advertisers, agencies, and sales teams to ensure all components work together seamlessly. Integrated investment teams on the agency and client side — ones that work collectively on media-mix allocations and as not siloed investment teams — will be able to execute this strategy most effectively.
Lean into Newly Unlocked Opportunities
In addition to the need for multi-layered strategies, the TV buying environment is evolving rapidly, presenting advertisers with new opportunities to gain greater control over ad placements. For example, there’s a growing trend toward fixed sports and entertainment streaming, where advertisers can place their ads to appear during live high-profile sports and entertainment streaming events.
At the same time, industry tech players have invested heavily in AI. Platforms such as Spectrum Reach’s Waymark are going to open up video advertising opportunities to small- and medium-sized businesses that want to use AI to generate professional commercials. This option represents a game changer for these companies, which can now advertise alongside bigger, more established brands.
Meanwhile, new content offerings, with both niche and mass appeal, are unlocking new advertiser opportunities. Take, for example, the following new sports leagues and events that launched on TV in 2025:
Unrivaled Basketball League on TNT, TruTV, Max
TGL Golf on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN+
NHL 4 Nations Faceoff on TNT, ESPN, and ABC
FIFA Club World Cup on TNT and DAZN
In general, women’s sports interest is rising, and rightfully so given the incredible talent and skill on display. Advertisers should expect to see more niche and mass-reach events available for brand alignment. For example, we saw strong demand for ad placements in the 2024 Cricket World Cup on Long Island.
Lean into Partners
The increasing complexity of the media landscape makes strong partnerships more critical than ever. With immense fragmentation in viewership, advertisers must rely on experienced sales teams and agency partners to help them navigate this ecosystem effectively.
In an era where media buying has shifted toward self-serve platforms, relationships with knowledgeable sales and agency teams serve as a key differentiator. These partners act as educators and consultants, helping advertisers make sense of an increasingly complex marketplace. Additionally, having a partner with an in-market presence is invaluable, as they understand the nuances of local viewing patterns and can provide data-driven, brand-safe recommendations tailored to specific markets.
Consultative partnerships can be particularly important for advertisers new to TV. Consider the case of an NYI client that launched its first TV campaign for the October 2024 broadcast month without any prior market presence. Their strategy included a mix of high-profile sports, audience targeting, and streaming, and according to the advertiser’s internal data, resulted in strong performance across important metrics:
• Direct website traffic increased by 126 percent.
• Lead forms and calls surged by 108 percent.
• Click-to-call metrics on the advertiser’s website improved by 28 percent.
• During a high-profile sporting event, search activity spiked by 3,400 percent.
This case study highlights the power of a well-executed media mix, reinforcing the importance of leveraging multiple TV layers to drive measurable outcomes.
The TV landscape isn’t getting any simpler — but that’s not a bad thing. Advertisers must embrace a media mix that cuts through fragmentation and reaches audiences wherever they watch. The key is to stay data-driven, diversify TV buys across platforms, and build strong partnerships that simplify the complexity. With more ways to reach audiences than ever before, advertisers that embrace the complexity will own the conversation in 2025 and beyond.
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The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the ANA or imply endorsement from the ANA.
Tom McLoughlin is a VP of Regional Sales for New York Interconnect.