This is a bonus behind-the-scenes look at our conversations with executives for Glossy’s 2024 Media Agency Report. The report examines the current and future state of media agencies, from the perspective of total client spending and spending by media channel. It also delves into the impact of retail media on the agency landscape.
Glossy hosted a focus group of five senior media agency executives who oversee media investment at holding company-owned and independent media agencies to gather first-person accounts of client spending. Agencies and networks that participated in the focus group were:
- Horizon Media
- Magna Global
- PMG
- Publicis Media
- UM
What follows are their thoughts on CTV and streaming’s increasing appeal and the industry impact on ad spending.
Lower CPMs and sports content increase CTV, streaming appeal
Streaming video and CTV is the third-most likely media channel (tied with display advertising) to benefit from larger client budgets in 2025, according to Glossy’s Media Agency Report. Agency focus group executives said that clients are shifting more ad dollars into streaming video and CTV due, in part, to CPM price cuts. Streaming platforms are also broadcasting more live sports content which appeals to clients who want to reach those massive sports audiences.
“The rollbacks on the Peacocks and the Maxes and the ones that have launched relatively recently at very high price points, Netflix, … has made them much more affordable and headed in the right direction in terms of pricing, and an adequate replacement for the efficiency of linear TV.” — David Campanelli, chief investment officer at Horizon Media
“On the CTV side, with the consolidation and mergers somewhat complete … we’re really seeing investment scale, just knowing the users are tied in from a content perspective and contextual relevancy. So, there is a moment where we’re really seeing a spotlight come in from the streaming platforms just because they want to be in front of the content libraries that said platform has.” — Natalee Geldert, head of brand media at PMG
“There’s increased interest [in CTV], even for clients that weren’t always big sports players. Sports as a reach vehicle, as an attention vehicle, and then the streamers start playing in the sports space, that just helps the CTV conversation. … Everyone’s looking for high attention, high engagement and a price point that works in their business economics. CTV is certainly, with the supply increase, starting to come down in those economics, which makes it easier to spend a higher volume in CTV.” — Shelby Saville, chief investment officer of Publicis Media
“The sports point is a good one because we definitely have advertisers that may be female-targeted advertisers that are buying into sports that historically haven’t, but it’s the place to get reliable, live GRPs [gross rating points] so that’s a good call out. … Every category — whoever bought TV — their money is going to a lot of places, but it’s obviously going to CTV fairly heavily. It’s not a category-specific media type anymore. It’s really broad at this point. — David Campanelli, chief investment officer at Horizon Media
Does cheaper CTV and streaming ad inventory lead to more flexibility from other channels?
Given the flood of less-expensive CTV and streaming ad inventory, Glossy asked the media agencies we spoke with if they have been seeing more flexible buying terms from other media channel sellers who don’t want to lose profits to CTV and streaming. Linear TV ads, in particular, are generally bought months in advance during the upfront buying cycle, typically making them less flexible.
“The flexibility is improving. With increased competition, sellers are recognizing that marketers are making decisions closer to campaign launch; and with increased competition from other media channels with better flexibility, sellers are willing to be more flexible across both their linear and digital terms. At this point, there’s so much competition out there from a digital video perspective that they have to be.” — Allie Kallish, evp, strategic investment and marketplace strategy at Magna Global
“Because their [sellers’] business is built on having a set number for the year, it has been a challenge to get some to come around to [the idea that] this is just the way it works now. … We’ve had to encourage publishers to look at spend trends over a number of years vs thinking one line item is going to stay static all year. Those days are dying, and the clients require this. There’s so much choice out there that we would be doing our clients a disservice if we weren’t helping them navigate the flexibility that they need. And that’s choiceful decisioning that goes beyond price when you’re trying to decide on the right partners.” — Shelby Saville, chief investment officer of Publicis Media
“It was also the dynamic of the newer players, like an Amazon, wanting to move toward more traditional cancellation option terms in the upfront and buyers not accepting that. Because they’re in the digital space, [buyers expect] they’re going to get digital flexibility, when they [the sellers] were looking for more traditional option terms. They were trying to go the other direction. It didn’t work out so well.” — David Campanelli, chief investment officer at Horizon Media
“A lot of companies, particularly in the social and OLV [online video] space, are offering highly flexible partnership models that enable clients to unlock value in exchange for spend endeavors, not firm commitments. However, it often requires a high volume of spend or significant year-over-year growth to unlock meaningful value, which may not be palatable for some clients, firm commitment or not.” — Marcy Greenberger, evp and managing partner at UM
