Balancing tradition and digital, bridging generational gaps crucial for advertisers: Nielsen

New Delhi: Nielsen, on Wednesday, released its 2025 global media planning report. The report provides insight to advertisers and publishers to navigate their way through an increasingly fragmented and complex media landscape.

The media planning report has highlighted three main trends that are reshaping how brands connect with audiences.

Tightrope between traditional and digital

Nielsen, in its report, threw light on the need to find the right mix of traditional and emerging digital media channels when creating media plans. Whilst the channel mix becomes more complex, balancing investment across traditional and emerging channels is difficult but necessary. 

The report highlighted that despite the rise in streaming, and the growth of Connected TV (CTV) devices, traditional TV remains a significant part of global media consumption, showing remarkable resilience in the face of digital competition. 

The complexity of the landscape was substantiated with an example. Poland remains strong in traditional TV viewership and only has approximately eight per cent of its audiences’ time spent streaming, which is in sharp comparison to that of the U.S. at 40 per cent of total TV time. As a result, media strategies must be nuanced and adaptable as traditional and digital platforms continue to coexist.

The report suggested advertisers develop market-specific strategies that balance both traditional and digital platforms.  “ If you prioritise streaming platforms in your media mix, consider maintaining a presence in traditional broadcast and cable to capture the still significant audiences within these channels,” the report mentioned. 

Publishers on the other hand should consider providing advertisers with unified sales packages and consistent measurement across both, Nielsen stated in the report. 

Catching up with Retail

The second trend centres around retail media advertising and the opportunities that are now available for brands to reach shoppers at the point of purchase on retailers’ digital platforms. 

This rapid area of growth offers new opportunities and is evolving, now holding a prominent position in global marketing strategies. 

Retail media advertising is increasing in importance across the globe with an example of this being that for the five months inclusive from August to December 2024, there was a steady month-on-month growth in Amazon retail media ad spend in Japan. 

Retail media offers advertisers and publishers another channel to utilise beyond traditional digital and offline media platforms.

To maximise retail media impact, advertisers should , analyze competitor spending and channel allocation to inform global media plans. They should consider utilising independent measurement solutions to ensure comparable data across platforms, enabling you to plan and evaluate campaign performance. First-party data is also crucial when it comes to targeted ads and robust analytics fueling full-funnel optimisation. 

According to Nielsen, publishers need to invest in seamless cross-platform integration to help advertisers see the value in a holistic approach for better media planning. 

Additionally, publishers should implement independent measurement standards with transparent, third-party verified metrics to boost advertisers’ confidence and position themselves as a valuable partner for effective retail media campaigns.

Bridge the gap

With the difference between how generations consume and interact with media, the third trend identified looks at the planning required for this shift in global media consumption habits. Whilst this is not a new phenomenon, the trend reiterates the importance of both how content is consumed, and now also how it is produced, distributed, and monetised. 

The media industry must continue to account for older generations as they can typically be heavy consumers of traditional media, and reflect this with an advertising strategy that understands the value of differing media types.

The action plan provided by Nielsen talks about developing a multi-platform strategy and tailoring content and messaging that resonates with the viewing habits and expectations of different age groups. Advertisers need to measure the impact of the approach, implement cross-platform measurement tools to track the effectiveness of the campaigns across both traditional and digital. 

On the other hand, publishers can offer cross-platform packages with detailed audience data and insights that can help advertisers optimise their campaigns.

Commenting on the recently released report, Alison Gensheimer, Head of Global Marketing, Nielsen, said, “Media landscape fragmentation combined with platform convergence, is creating new opportunities for advertisers to effectively reach their audiences. 

Cross-media measurement and personalization are possible, requiring new data sources and methodologies allowing brands to drive more meaningful and beneficial engagement with consumers. The insights from this report help the industry take advantage of these new opportunities.”