New research highlights ROI gaps in advertising, pointing to content-based media planning

Major marketers, agency leaders, and industry analysts recently gathered for a closed-door industry discussion examining how Philippine advertisers are reviewing media investment decisions amid tightened budgets, declining television consumption, and increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable return on investment.

With the theme “Every Peso Matters: Media That Works for Consumer Brands in the Philippines”, the event organized by adobo Magazine presented research on how brands and marketers can ensure that every peso invested in media really works in a marketing environment where budgets are under increasing scrutiny and performance accountability is paramount.

The research, carried out by the world’s leading statistical company, Analytic Edge, a C5i group company, is based on the concept of media adequacy, which is defined as investing at the level necessary for the channel to be effective, rather than spreading the budget thinly across multiple touchpoints. The firm noted that as audience focus pieces and traditional reach-based planning become less reliable, determining adequacy has emerged as a key discipline for effective media planning.

Discover Data About Media Performance

The insights shared during the session are derived from the latest Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) data on all 11 FMCG brands in the country which analyzed how different media channels contribute to actual sales performance.

According to this study, TV consumption in the Philippines continues to decline, as it still controls the majority of media investment. At the same time, the share of media spent on short video platforms like TikTok has grown rapidly, rising from 1% to 17% in just five years, reflecting its emergence as a core channel. This rapid growth reflects a shift in consumer attention patterns toward a mobile-first and short-form video environment.

Analyzing how different media channels contribute to actual sales performance, the analysis found that although digital video platforms now have a growing share of consumer attention, advertisers’ investment is not always consistent with their performance contribution.

Across all model brands, TikTok led in ROI performance in nearly 70% of models, delivering nearly 2.2x returns on average – outperforming digital and traditional media in the combined dataset. Specifically, in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) category, TikTok recorded relative ROI levels of 2.42x and up to 4.7 times that of other media in some comparisons. For F&B, TikTok ROI was almost 1.7 times that of total media.

Despite this, research has revealed that TikTok accounts for only five to six percent of total FMCG media spend, suggesting a possible under-share related to its model offering.

The analysis also showed that many brands are operating below adequate levels, especially on high-impact, full-funnel digital channels. In the case of TikTok, efficiency is seen when investment levels reach between 86% and 160% of current costs, indicating high value before diminishing returns. According to research, underinvestment, rather than channel inactivity, is increasingly the primary driver of lost ROI.

This study also examined how much new audience exposure there is when TikTok is used alongside TV. It found that the audience overlap between TikTok and linear TV is about 48-49%, which means that more than half of the people reached on TikTok are completely replicated by television.

In short, this suggests that TikTok is not just repeating the same viewers, but extending its reach to a wider audience. When both channels are used together, the modeling showed an increase in awareness of approximately +24.6%, showing that the combination brings a stronger overall impact than TV alone. This reinforces the idea that equity-led media investment can improve overall media effectiveness, not just overlapping results, when thoughtfully integrated into a broader mix.

From Field Results to Smart Planning

Padmanabhan Ramaswamy, Managing Director, South-East Asia at Analytic Edge, emphasized that the real challenge for brands is not just to identify high ROI channels, but to align budget allocations with limited returns. In many cases, traditional budgeting practices may no longer match how people consume media today or which channels actually drive more sales.

“What this study highlights is not only which platform is performing well, but whether the budget is in line with the estimated sales contribution. Media adequacy is about investing at the right scale so that the channels can deliver their full potential, rather than being underfunded and misunderstood,” said Padmanabhan.

The study highlighted that certain channels are effective only if they are funded at the right scale. These findings challenge traditional allocation processes and underscore the importance of data-led planning in an increasingly complex media environment.

Overall, the session showed a growing consensus among industry leaders: as marketing effectiveness comes under greater scrutiny, success will depend less on testing and more on adequacy-based investment decisions based on rigorous analysis. Insights from the discussion are expected to inform ongoing discussions as advertisers and agencies adjust their media strategies for the coming year.

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