Halfway to Holidays: The most expensive holiday strategy is waiting

Key takeaway: Waiting doesn’t just increase cost—it reduces the quality of what is still available to buy.

Why delay creates hidden costs long before Q4 begins

Holiday planning is often framed as a budgeting exercise. But in practice, it behaves more like a market timing problem and in constrained markets, timing determines cost.

Across industries—air travel, hospitality, live events—pricing follows a predictable pattern. As demand increases and availability decreases:

• prices rise
• flexibility decreases
• quality options disappear

Advertising behaves the same way, but unlike consumer markets, the inflection point is less visible.

The hidden costs of late holiday planning

When marketers delay holiday commitments, the impact extends beyond CPM inflation.

They often experience:

1. Reduced inventory quality - Premium placements are secured earlier in planning cycles.
2. Increased audience overlap - More advertisers compete for the same high-intent segments.
3. Lower strategic flexibility - Less ability to adjust sequencing or optimize mid-flight.
4. Higher frequency waste - Repeated exposure to the same audiences across campaigns.

These inefficiencies compound.

Why streaming intensifies this dynamic and why that plays to Samsung's advantage

Streaming now represents the majority of TV consumption, changing how audiences are reached and how advertisers think about premium inventory.

• Streaming accounts for the majority of TV consumption , and Samsung sits at the center of that shift.
• Ad-supported streaming is now the dominant monetization model.
• Audience fragmentation is increasing across platforms.

This combination creates a more competitive marketplace—more demand, finite premium supply, and greater competition for valuable audiences.

For advertisers, that makes planning ahead increasingly important. Platforms with broad, high-quality streaming audiences, including Samsung Ads, can offer opportunities to build reach and connect with audiences earlier in the planning cycle.

With 80+ million Smart TVs in the U.S., Samsung is the nation’s No. 1 Smart TV.

Early planning isn’t simply about securing inventory. It’s about creating more options.

That can mean:

• More flexibility in selecting premium placements.
• More opportunities to reach audiences across streaming environments.
• Greater ability to build sequencing into a campaign.
• More time to identify gaps and optimize before the holiday rush.

For example, Samsung Ads gives advertisers access to audiences across environments including Samsung TV Plus, the Samsung Smart TV Home Screen and premium CTV inventory. Planning earlier can give marketers more flexibility in how those opportunities fit into a broader holiday media strategy.

The same principle applies across the TV ecosystem: the earlier advertisers understand where their audiences are—and where they want to reach them—the more strategic options they have.

As holiday demand accelerates, those options naturally become more limited. What remains isn’t necessarily a bad opportunity; it just may not be the opportunity a marketer would have chosen at the start of the planning cycle.

That’s why the goal isn’t simply to buy early. It’s to give your holiday strategy room to be strategic before the marketplace gets crowded.

Ready to start planning? Explore how Samsung Ads can help you reach audiences across the evolving TV landscape.