Before committing to expensive TV ad production, Gab created multiple concepts and tested them using surveys sent to their target demographic. By asking questions about purchase intent after viewing a concept, they used data to select the most promising ideas, increasing the likelihood of success.

Tushy actively measures the cross-channel impact of its advertising, discovering that top-of-funnel channels like Linear TV drive a greater sales lift on Amazon than digital channels like Meta. This is attributed to the demographic overlap between Linear TV viewers and typical Amazon Prime shoppers.

Manscaped's success stems from treating TV not as a sporadic, campaign-based brand play, but as an always-on performance channel. This requires the same analytical rigor, continuous testing, and focus on business outcomes as paid search or social, unlocking its full potential as a demand generator.

Data reveals that Super Bowl ads scoring highest with women also tend to be the top performers overall, including with men. Conversely, ads most popular with men are less predictive of total success. This highlights a significant missed opportunity, as women drive 85% of household purchasing decisions.

For brands with a large Total Addressable Market (TAM), performance marketing can be squeezed for efficiency much longer. Manscaped waited until reaching significant scale before shifting budget from direct conversion campaigns to broader brand awareness initiatives, a transition many D2C brands make too early.

Instead of treating all channels equally, identify which customer segments (e.g., brand advertisers) are best served by which channels (e.g., TV screens). Shifting demand accordingly can unlock massive growth by optimizing the entire portfolio and increasing customer ROI.

Instead of using retail to build awareness, Manscaped waited until they had massive marketing spend. This ensured customers would specifically seek them out in stores, guaranteeing high sell-through for partners like Target and de-risking the move from D2C to physical retail.

Manscaped shifted its TV strategy from a branding experiment to a core growth channel. They measure its success with performance metrics like Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), applying the same rigor used for paid search and social, ensuring TV directly contributes to business goals.

Manscaped employs a dual creative strategy for TV. They run aspirational, brand-focused ads during major cultural moments to tell a story, then support those with direct-response (DR) versions that highlight product features and a strong call-to-action. This balances brand building with performance goals.