Linear Is Still the Reach Steamroller

This is the next report in the series which began with this kickoff article on March 28 that utilized Nielsen ONE data to show that cross-platform campaigns can reach over 90% of your target. This is important because P&G’s Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard told the industry on February 16 to aim for that level of reach. In the March 28 kickoff post I cited a specific 90%+ reach schedule of which 79.7% of the GRPs were in linear, 10.7% were in mobile, 6.8% in CTV, and 2.8% in computer. However, a campaign with similar overall GRP only got a reach of 59.74%, and the reason for that was that it went too far in linear – 99.9% of the GRPs, with tiny amounts of the other three platforms. This suggests that in the Upfront, buyers should make sure they have reserved enough linear and enough of the three non-linear types. As shown by the following reach curves, the priority order is linear, mobile, CTV, computer. (Note: Nielsen is one of my consulting clients, along with ARF, CIMM, Fox, Meta, Adelaide, RealEyes, WeAre8, RMT, Semasio and others.)