Remember when TV advertising was all about gut feelings, big budgets, and hoping viewers weren't in the kitchen during commercial breaks? Those days are officially over.
That’s right. Traditional TV creative formulas are old news.
With 88% of TV viewers watching with a second device in hand and creative effectiveness on a concerning decline, it's time for marketers to rethink their approach to TV advertising.
In this Adweek webinar, Marketing Architects CEO Angela Voss and Trust & Will CMO Dale Sperling reveal how TV advertising effectiveness is being redefined in 2025. Together, they outline new rules for creating TV advertising that captures attention, inspires action, and actually keeps brands top-of-mind.
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Strategies first, not gut instinct. Remarkable TV creative starts with deep audience understanding, not creative assumptions. Before writing scripts, marketers should identify who they're truly trying to reach, assess current brand perceptions, and clarify what specific behaviors they aim to influence at scale.
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Validate before you invest in new creative. Research shows With marketers only correctly predicting ad performance 52% of the time according to Marpipe, pretesting is no longer optional. AI-powered tools like Marketing Architects' ScriptSooth use synthetic audiences to predict performance in minutes rather than weeks, at a fraction of traditional costs.
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Mingle with creative effectiveness principles. TV ads receive approximately 15 seconds of viewer attention. That’s far more than YouTube (4.5 seconds) or Facebook (1 second). Yet industry research shows 47% of TV advertisements produce only neutral feelings. So brands that do create emotionally resonant content will stand out from the crowd.
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Embrace AI's role in the future of creative production. While 61% of agencies already use generative AI, the real revolution is "shootless creative" that combines traditional production with AI tools and techniques. This approach lets teams test concepts that would otherwise be impossible, dramatically expanding creative possibilities.
