Growth Beats ROI: Why Effectiveness is the New North Star
Stewart Gurney
Director of Strategy and Effectiveness, Nine
At the 2026 Future of TV Advertising conference in Sydney, Stewart Gurney, Powered by Nine’s Director of Strategy and Effectiveness, delivered a compelling challenge to the industry: stop chasing efficiency at the expense of growth.
Watch the session now, or if you prefer a written summary, read the insights below.
Gurney opened with a hard truth for advertisers: while ROI has become the “shortcut for success” in boardrooms, it is often an efficiency metric that prioritises cost-cutting over profit maximisation. And, by focusing solely on ROI, brands are falling into an under-optimisation trap, missing out on an estimated $4 billion in potential profit.
This is the catalyst for The Growth Project – Nine’s commitment to proving Total TV’s contribution to driving bottom-line results.
Gurney went on to outline three distinct growth pillars for advertisers to shift from this ROI, efficiency-obsessed mindset to an effectiveness mindset to reclaim lost that profit:
1. Sales Growth: The Power of Scale and Saturation
The core of Gurney’s session focused on the inverse correlation between ROI and profit growth. Because ROI improves as you spend less, it often leads brands to underinvest in the channels that actually move the needle.
The Revenue Driver: Analysis from Mutinex revealed that Total TV (TTV) is the second-highest contributor to media-driven revenue, generating 22% of all media-attributed sales, double platforms like YouTube.
The “Gym Bro” Analogy: To illustrate the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, Gurney compared media channels to moving house, with digital performance channels as your “fast” friends, good at moving the small boxes, and TTV as your “gym bro mate”, capable of lifting the heavy furniture. If you prioritise your “fast” digital mates moving you, you’re leaving the heavy furniture (profit) behind.
High Saturation Points: Unlike digital channels that get tired or reach a plateau quickly, TTV continues to deliver. With the highest saturation point in the Australian market, brands can invest significantly more in TV before seeing diminishing returns. Despite this, 83% of advertisers remain underinvested in the medium.
2. Brand Growth: Content, Context, and Co-Viewing
Two very powerful dynamics make TV superior at brand building, Gurney explained – the content advertising is associated with, and the context of the viewing moment. What someone watches and how they watch it is often a forgotten dynamic when it comes to cross-screen planning.
The Big Screen Advantage: Viewing on a TV screen produces 60% higher ad recall than mobiles or tablets, largely because viewers are in a more relaxed, receptive state.
The Power of Company: 40% of Australians watch free-to-air content with others. This co-viewing creates social resonance and memory structures, making audiences twice as likely to mimic an ad when watching with others.
The Trust Era: In an age of fake news, professionally produced content generates 60% higher recall and significantly more trust than user-generated content (UGC).
3. Short-Term Growth: Priming the Performance Pump
While TV is often viewed as a long-term play, Gurney highlighted its critical role in driving performance, acting as a primer that makes the bottom of the funnel work harder.
Supercharging Digital: TV investment leads to a 14% improvement in search and social conversations.
Bypassing the Search Trap: With AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT disrupting traditional search, getting consumers to go direct-to-site is vital – 66% of TV-initiated searches are direct or organic, allowing brands to leapfrog expensive, generic search terms.
Action Driver: Data from Adgile confirms that 1 in 3 media-attributable actions (web visits or app interactions) are driven by TV, proving its immediate impact on the digital ecosystem.
Many of these insights require advertisers to think differently and challenge existing biases However, the takeaway is simple: if growth matters to your business, effectiveness matters. And if effectiveness matters, then TV matters.
Source: Nine Project 2025 Mutinex/ Kantar/ Adgile, Thinkbox Context Effects Study
