CTV and TV Ads Surge as Brands Rework Holiday Playbooks for 2026

By Daniel Okafor

Streaming is the biggest mover in holiday marketing for 2026. Forty-five percent of brands and retailers plan to run CTV/streaming ads this holiday season, up from 23% in 2025 — a 22 percentage point jump, according to Modern Retail+ Research's survey of 90 brand and retailer professionals, published in "The 2026 guide to holiday marketing strategies."

The report combines the survey with interviews with marketing executives at companies including A-Frame Brands, Mastercard and Ritual. It tracks which commerce channels are winning budget and which are losing it.

What's driving the shift to TV screens?

The streaming rebound is a reversal. CTV/streaming usage dropped 14 percentage points from 2024 to 2025 before climbing back in 2026. Linear TV tells a similar story: usage fell only 4 points between 2024 and 2025, then jumped 20 points this year. Thirty-three percent of marketers plan TV ads for the 2026 holidays, versus 13% in 2025.

Ritual's chief growth officer, Laura Brodie, said the channel works because holiday viewing spikes — but warned against treating it as a seasonal one-off. "Streaming is a really valid channel to invest in during holiday because consumption of that media spikes," Brodie said. "But participating in streaming is actually a decision for the whole year. Starting to engage just for holiday would be a risky move, especially for a smaller brand."

"If you have the data to back it up over the course of the year showing this is a channel that's proven and the ROI metrics associated, it can make a lot of sense to spike it during holiday," she added.

Ari Bloom, founder and CEO of brand incubator A-Frame Brands, said both formats convert specific demographics. "Streaming and television is an effective audience conversion mechanism, especially with women over 30 years old," Bloom said. "We've done a lot of work on daytime TV and on QVC. We see significantly bigger segments in the holiday time period from November through mid-December, and we always put attention on those times."

Which tactics are losing ground?

Brand experiences, the most-used tactic in 2025, slipped to second place. Forty-one percent of marketers plan to use them in 2026, down from 50% — a 9 point drop. Gift guide usage fell 19 percentage points year over year, and influencer hauls/unboxing videos dropped 14 points.

Here's the twist: the declining tactics still perform best historically. Gift guides rank No. 1 for long-term performance, cited by 31% of marketers. Brand experiences rank No. 2 at 28%. Pop-up shops hold No. 3, and CTV/streaming ads tie for No. 4. Influencer hauls/unboxing videos fell in both historical performance and planned 2026 usage.

Brodie argued gift guides are due for a comeback, not a fade, because AI search tools lean on curated lists to answer queries. "Gift guides are very interesting in the world of AEO and thinking about LLM optimization," Brodie said. "Gift guides can play an important role in holiday and especially bridging LLM research and AI overviews. So, I'm bullish about gift guides."

What does this change for holiday planning?

Bloom's advice points back to print. "Catalogs have always been very successful, and they're heavily conversion-focused," Bloom said. "When they're discount-driven and when people's attention is on buying, you can do offers that you can only get via physical paper, and it does drive people into stores."

The practical takeaway for marketers: the highest-spending channels for 2026 — CTV, TV — are not the historically best-performing ones, and the tactics brands are cutting, like gift guides, may matter more as AI-driven search reshapes how shoppers find products.