We’ve quickly approached the tail end of the year, when the focus on budgets is scrutinised more than ever. Brands will naturally focus on how their budgets are best spent to generate cut through the noise – in most cases that comes down to more than the budget itself. Volume alone buys you very little; what tends to work well is a clear creative idea and the channels that give it the best chance of landing.
In too many cases, these decisions are made in different rooms by different people, causing a misalignment where the two should work in tandem to acknowledge the audiences they reach.
A louder quarter than ever
The scale of competition requires further contextualising. According to the latest WARC figures, advertisers put £12.9 billion into UK media in Q4 2025, an 8% increase on 2024. Within that, core media channels such as Retail Media, addressable TV, Paid Social and YouTube all grew spend by more than 20%. Social is now a larger portion of this picture. In 2025, it took 25% of UK advertising investment, second only to Search; and with total UK ad spend forecast to rise a further 7% in 2026, it looks set to keep gaining ground. The channels growing the fastest are the ones every brand is moving to.
But trust is a huge part of this shifting rationale. UK shoppers are largely sceptical, and they aren’t short of seeing ads – most of them just don’t trust what they see. According to Barclays, two-thirds of UK shoppers doubt the real value of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, with reports of falsified prices and longer sale durations. PwC found interest in Black Friday fell to 46% in 2025, from 53% the year before. In a quarter of inflated budgets but a market dwindling in trust, advertising must provide a level of cut through to avoid being scrolled past. The advertising that sticks is the kind that entertains first and sells second, which matters even more when the audience has stopped believing in the sell.
One ad, many mindsets
When brands take one ad and run it across every channel, they’re ignoring how people behave on each one. A Gen Z shopper on TikTok and a parent watching on catch-up TV are in totally different mindsets; they don’t want the same thing, so how can we reach them with the same ad just resized? Barclays found that 45% of Gen Z shoppers expected to use Social commerce platforms such as TikTok Shop, compared with 15% of those aged 28 and over. The channel needs to match the idea. The commerce platforms are there for every age bracket but must be used in a way that relates to their audience.
Choosing your Social channels
There is nuance required in selecting a Social channel in 2026. The two key factors in this are audience affinity and brand category objective. While TikTok and Meta will naturally appear as the key drivers, we can look to channels such as Reddit and Pinterest. The latter is particularly effective for driving high-intent clicks, as users use the platform for discovery in key seasonal periods and life moments. They go into the platform with curation in mind, so placing ads that blend in and feel native is key to creating a seamless experience. Likewise, the same consideration must be applied to brand suitability to the platform. While each has targeting to increase its relevancy to its desired audience, a brand should consider how well messaging would be received on the platform. A B2B tech stack provider would find low intent from Pinterest ads, as the content is not what users are using the platform to discover.
Social-driven revenue was forecast to climb by 40% across November and December (Adobe UK), with research showing nearly half of shoppers cite Social as a way of discovering Cyber Week deals (Found). Meta, particularly Instagram, and TikTok are the bread and butter of reaching this mass audience, but the creative needs to warrant the stop mid-scroll. Native, creator-style formats with a strong first few seconds will do more than a polished TV ad.
What about TV?
Which leads to the question of how we approach TV as a mass driver in this period. The change in the AV landscape is well-documented, and viewers have more than adopted the digital shift. Addressable TV grew by 27% in Q4 2025, which allows advertisers to continue the level of targeting they’re used to and increase the relevancy of their branding.
But what about using the same 30s cut as what’s available to your Social channels? Great TV advertising thrives on craft, character and story because more often than not, families are watching together. And even when viewing solo, emotional relevance or relatability will have lasting effects that will make a brand more memorable. Being at the front of the consumer mind is invaluable in the festive and sales period.
The closer
While a lot of the discussion is around how we shift these channels to be adaptable, there is still room for the high conversion points that lean into ROAS targets and scrutinise performance metrics. Retail Media is the closer, and it was the fastest-growing media channel in the quarter at 31%. Its sole job is conversion at the point of purchase, which means it shouldn’t be tasked with brand building and should focus only on the last-mile work.
The planner’s role: challenge how the brand will be seen
Each channel comes with its own mindset, its own format and its own job. That makes channel selection a question of perception as much as it is performance. It is the ever-increasing role of the media planner to challenge brands on how they will be perceived. A brief usually arrives with a list of channels already attached, or a client who wants to be everywhere. The easy response is to say yes and build the plan. The planner's role is to push back and ask how the brand will be perceived in each place, given the conditions it will be seen in within the parameters they’ve set, the audience, the platform, and the time available to deliver the plan.
Being on a platform is not the same as being receptive. If they’re planning, the ad needs to help them decide. If they’re scrolling for entertainment, it needs to entertain. A resized asset tells the viewer the brand didn’t make the effort – a smaller selection of channels with creative adapted for each will create lasting impact versus a longer list with one creative stretched across it. If the channel selection is too focused on the closing of the sale, the audience sees the hard sell multiple times, and the brand’s perception is that of a discount. Social discovers, TV builds memory and credibility, Retail Media closes.
This isn’t the planner saying no for the sake of it. It’s about asking the client to defend each choice with a rationale beyond “everyone else is there”. If they can, the plan is stronger. If they can’t, we’ve protected the budget and how the brand comes across.
More budget and more channels is the instinct in Q4, and it’s rarely the winning move. The brands that cut through know where their audience will pay attention, and they show up in each place with something made for it.
Budget decides how loud you can be; creative and channel choice decide whether anyone wants to listen. Interested in having a conversation about how we can help you cut through the noise in Q4? Get in touch with the team today.
Author: Archie Williams
