Broadcast advertising and television commercial production remain among the highest-cost marketing investments a consumer brand will make in North America, and the planning errors at the front of the process compound through every subsequent buy. This article covers how MOART thinks about broadcast advertising for cross-border brands entering North America: when broadcast still pays back, how to structure the spend across linear TV and connected TV, and what the production economics actually look like in 2026.
Broadcast advertising is now a context-dependent investment rather than a default channel. The categories where television commercial production and broadcast media still produce positive return on investment in the current media landscape: legacy CPG launching in mass retail (Walmart, Target, Kroger, Costco), regulated categories where digital advertising is restricted (alcohol, pharma, gambling, certain financial services), and luxury or premium consumer categories where the brand-building function of broadcast is the actual product being purchased.
The categories where broadcast no longer pays back: most pure-DTC consumer brands under 50 million dollars in revenue, software and SaaS targeting business buyers, niche specialty products with audiences too small to justify mass reach, and any brand whose conversion path depends on direct-response measurement that broadcast cannot deliver. The wrong broadcast investment for the wrong category is one of the fastest ways for an emerging brand to burn six months of runway.
Linear television (the traditional broadcast and cable networks) still delivers the largest single-buy reach available in North America. Connected television (streaming services with advertising tiers: Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, Tubi, Pluto, Amazon Prime Video Ads) delivers more precise audience targeting and full measurement attribution but at substantially smaller per-buy reach.
The 2026 split that works for most consumer brands: 60 to 70 percent of the broadcast budget into connected TV for the targeting and measurement, 30 to 40 percent into linear for the reach and frequency efficiency. The exact split depends on category. For mass-channel CPG with strong sell-through at major retailers, the linear weight goes up. For premium DTC brands building brand awareness, the connected TV weight goes up.
The trap to avoid: treating connected TV as if it were digital advertising. Connected TV is broadcast media that happens to be delivered through streaming. The creative requirements are broadcast standards (30 second spots, professional production values, broadcast-quality audio), not the 15-second vertical video that works on social media. Brands that try to use their social creative on connected TV see materially worse results than brands that produce broadcast-quality assets.
A professional television commercial production in North America in 2026 budgets in three tiers. Tier 1 (national commercial, broadcast network ready, celebrity talent, A-list director): 500,000 to 2 million dollars per spot. Tier 2 (national broadcast quality, professional but not celebrity talent, established but not A-list director): 150,000 to 500,000 dollars per spot. Tier 3 (regional broadcast or connected TV ready, agency-quality production but lean crew): 35,000 to 150,000 dollars per spot.
The optimization that most brands underuse: producing one Tier 1 hero asset and three to five Tier 3 supporting assets in the same shoot. The hero asset goes into national broadcast and the high-priority connected TV placements. The supporting assets go into longer-tail connected TV, social cutdowns, and digital pre-roll. The same shoot day amortizes across the full media plan, which is materially more cost-efficient than producing assets one at a time.
Brands buying broadcast media for the first time should structure the test as a true experiment, not a launch. The recommended test structure: 90 to 120 days of activity, 70 percent of the budget concentrated in 4 to 6 priority DMAs (Designated Market Areas) rather than spread thin nationally, full measurement instrumentation (incremental lift studies, retail sell-through tracking, brand awareness pre and post study), and a clear go/no-go decision framework defined before the test starts.
The DMAs that work best for a first broadcast test in most consumer categories: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Atlanta. These six DMAs cover roughly 25 percent of US households and provide a representative read on a national rollout. Testing in smaller DMAs (Cleveland, Portland, Salt Lake City) is cheaper per impression but the read does not extrapolate cleanly to national.
International brands buying their first US broadcast media face two additional complications that domestic brands do not. First, the brand recognition baseline is lower, which means broadcast spend has to work harder to build awareness before it can drive consideration. Second, the creative usually has to be re-produced for the US market because creative produced for other markets rarely translates cleanly into US broadcast standards.
The MOART recommendation for cross-border brands: do not buy broadcast media in year 1 of US entry. The retailer relationships, DTC operations, and customer data infrastructure all need to be built first. Broadcast investment in year 2 or year 3 (once the brand has retail sell-through data to inform the targeting and creative) consistently outperforms broadcast investment in year 1. The brands that compress the broadcast investment into year 1 typically see the worst return on broadcast spend.
MOART operates broadcast advertising programs for international brands building their US and Canadian presence. The work spans media planning across linear TV and connected TV, television commercial production from concept through delivery, broadcast standards compliance (broadcast-quality audio mix, closed captioning, advertiser ID requirements), incremental lift measurement, and the integration of broadcast media into the broader marketing mix including retail in-store activation and digital channels.
For cross-border brands evaluating whether broadcast advertising is the right investment for the current stage, MOART provides the planning read on category, timing, and budget structure that determines whether the investment will pay back. To discuss broadcast advertising or television commercial production for your brand, contact MOART at info@moartgrp.com or visit moartgrp.com/contact.
