Strategies for Connecting With Consumers in a Fragmented Media Landscape

This post was created in partnership with Nielsen

Instead of chasing consumers and their fragmented viewing habits, marketers need to adapt how they measure, target and capture audiences as the lines blur between platforms.

In a live group chat at Adweek House at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, presented in partnership with Nielsen, industry leaders shared strategies for making that happen—and connecting with consumers whose media models are most difficult to define.

“We’re looking to take what we do to another level with more advanced audience data,” said Alison Gensheimer, head of global marketing at Nielsen. “It’s beyond basic information like age and gender to things like race and ethnicity, so you can see the audience that matters. The era we’re entering will bring the ability to find the audience which is most relevant to you, on the platforms”.

While demographics used to drive media buying decisions, behavior has emerged as a key to understanding what moves audiences, said Aulden Kaye, head of advertising partnerships for streaming service Philo. .

“The old gold standard was demographic data – ‘Who is my main customer, who is their persona?’ And I’m just going to where these people are,” he said. “But not only does it need to be very nuanced about the demographics, but also about the behavioral data that divides those demographics into different segments. And you also need a good understanding of past performance around purchases. How do they change the flow and behavior?”

But a focus on data shouldn’t come at the expense of creativity, said Laura Simpson, chief intelligence officer and president of McCann Worldgroup Truth Central.

“How can we best bridge the gap between the needs of the creative audience and the needs of the average audience?” he asked the audience. “We use the word ‘accuracy’, but we should also talk about ‘possibility’. Are we creating the right stack of data that gives us a deeply human view of our audience? Because from a creative point of view, it’s not just where people is, but who are on a human level. And when we understand that, how do we inspire creativity? Audience insights can be driven by demographics and obvious. But creative strategists want the “strange”. That’s what inspires the creative idea. And that gets lost in translation between the two sides.”

The deepest connections with consumers come from the alchemy of data, technology and creativity, agrees Emily Kennedy, evp and head of partnerships at dentsu Media US.

“We need to keep the consumer in mind. What resonates in the content they consume, which will not be what they consume in six months? With these huge amounts of data, we can predict that everyone is going to watch the Super Bowl. But what is the next thing that we can not anticipate, that we need to capitalize in another way?

“How do we bring all these things together? How do we best use data, trends and cultural moments to really connect with consumers in a deeper way? If we keep dividing things into buckets, we lose sight of what resonates with consumers , and for the actions that our brands need to take,” said Kennedy. “The danger is that if we start devaluing creativity in the long run, we’ll lose something really magical, which is the connection with consumers.”