What happens when brands go dark?

Analysis of Kantar Millward Brown's data indicates that brands can "go dark" – i.e. stop or suspend TV advertising – for six months or so with little deleterious effect.

Coming Off Air: The Consequences

When a brand stops advertising on TV, our tracking database shows that brand health may become vulnerable. However, when the time off-air is six months or less, the effects can be small. But on balance we see declines in purchase measures, and bigger brands are more likely to suffer a decline than smaller brands.

*Net Change: Percent of brands increasing – percent of brands decreasing (updated August 2018)

Longer periods off-air are much more likely to be damaging. A good example comes from the UK insurance market. A regular and reasonably heavy advertiser, this insurance...

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