While consumers prepare to welcome all things fall, many marketers have their sights set further ahead, wrapping up their 2024 holiday season campaign plans. With content consumption habits and the media landscape evolving at breakneck speeds, these marketers can’t just plug in last year’s holiday playbook and expect the same results.
One major shift on everyone’s radar is the continued rise of streaming advertising. With more targeting capabilities and younger audiences on average, the ecosystem has more brands — and their ad dollars — vying to reach coveted consumers across numerous platforms and apps.
As the competition for streaming ad share of voice intensifies, it’s more important than ever for marketers to gain transparency and visibility into what’s happening in streaming environments.
With the holiday season right around the corner, department store brands offer a perfect case study in how strategies can vary among competitors. Drawing from our Streaming Competitive solution, we break down last holiday season’s linear and streaming media weight approaches among top department store brands and reveal which ones are increasingly shifting toward streaming.
Walmart Led in Streaming, While Target Took Over Linear Last Holiday Season
Walmart and Target took different approaches to reaching holiday shoppers last year. Target came out on top on traditional TV with 22.51% of linear ad impression SOV among department store brands. Creative messaging from the brand emphasized low prices and its convenient services like free drive-up pick up.
Meanwhile, Walmart captured the largest share of streaming ad impressions. The retailer went beyond just buying ad space on streaming platforms, and embraced innovation with a shoppable content campaign that engaged digital-savvy shoppers across streaming and social channels.
Walmart wasn’t alone in its stronger streaming presence relative to linear TV ad reach footprints. TJX Companies like Marshall’s, TJ Maxx and HomeGoods all saw higher shares of voice on streaming compared to linear as well.
Target Made Advances on Walmart’s Streaming Ad SOV
Fast forwarding to recent months, the streaming TV ad impression leaderboard is already seeing some shake-ups, indicating shifts in media mix strategies ahead of back-to-school and holiday seasons.
While Walmart maintained its streaming lead in Q2, other retailers are also looking to ramp up streaming efforts relative to last year.
Target, for instance, made significant gains year-over-year, increasing its share of streaming ad impressions from 10.94% in Q2 2023 to an impressive 18.01% in Q2 2024. The retailer ranked fourth in terms of streaming ad SOV last Q4, but its recent YoY growth could foreshadow a stronger investment in digital this coming holiday season.
Other department store brands are also gaining ground. JCPenney and Sam’s Club both more than doubled their respective streaming ad SOV year-over-year in Q2, signaling their own strategic shifts toward CTV.
Linear TV ad impression SOV shows where new approaches were at play as well. Both Kohl’s and Macy’s grew Q2 linear TV ad reach YoY, while various competitors decreased impressions as streaming share rose.
Want to give your brand the gift of stronger streaming ad presence? Now’s the time to unwrap real-time insights into competitors’ media strategies. Reach out to learn how competitive intelligence from iSpot can help you properly allocate spend, hone streaming ad levels and gain market share amongst the holiday ad noise.