Mind the Gap: Why Consumers and Marketers Don’t See Eye to Eye on Ad Platforms

Each year, Kantar’s Media Reactions study takes the pulse of the global media landscape by comparing what consumers and marketers say they prefer. The 2025 edition reveals a sharp divide. Consumers’ top five ad platforms are dominated by Amazon brands – Amazon itself, Twitch and Prime Video – joined by Snapchat and TikTok. Marketers, meanwhile, continue to favour YouTube, Instagram, Google, Netflix and Spotify, with no overlap between the lists.

At the same time, spend is shifting. More than half of marketers (54%) plan to increase investment in TV streaming, 19% intend to up their use of product placement, while a net 26% are set to reduce linear TV budgets. Influencer and social commerce spend is also climbing fast. Consumers are becoming more receptive too, with 57% now saying they’re generally open to advertising, up from 47% last year. And trust remains pivotal: Twitch is rated the most trusted ad environment, while X sits last for the third year running, with many marketers planning to cut spend.

The Consumer–Marketer Mismatch

It would seem that there is something not lining up properly here. But is that an overreaction? “There’s a temptation to over-interpret the divide between consumers’ and marketers’ preferred ad platforms,” warns Dan Gee, managing director UK at Media Futures Market. “No consumer has ever said, ‘the ads on Amazon are so well considered, that’s why it’s my favourite platform.’ Consumers don’t think about advertising nearly as much as marketers do. When asked, their answers tend to reflect platforms they’ve heard of and environments where the ads don't get in the way.

“So when Amazon, Twitch and Prime Video rise to the top, it doesn’t tell us consumers ‘like’ those ads more that they tolerate them or aren't really aware of them. When Kantar ask a slightly different question, which channels do people feel most positively about they get a very different answer: OOH, cinema, in-person events. But very few consumers could name the vendors behind them.”

“That’s why I wouldn’t treat the marketer–consumer gap here as a deep insight. It’s more a reminder that advertising lives in the background for most people.”

​Jack Chape, head of integrated media, EMEA, at PMG sees the gap as less of a contradiction and more as a clash between ”preference and presence”. “Kantar measures where people say they like ads, while marketers plan against where people actually spend time,” he notes. YouTube and Instagram dominate attention in ways other platforms do not, which he argues is why they remain central to plans.

“But it is not only about reach. Performance and measurement also play a major role,” Jack continues. “Ecosystems like Google and Meta have built sophisticated tools over time that make it easier to quantify impact, and as established platforms, they give marketers confidence around which KPIs to use. Too often marketers fail to apply the right metrics to the right activity, which can lead to misleading signals about effectiveness.”

There is a clear provocation here, as Jack sees it: “if the platforms that dominate attention score lower on consumer preference, what does that say about the advertising on them? The challenge is not just buying more reach, but improving the quality of what shows up by making ads more relevant, more native to the environment, and sequenced to build effective frequency rather than irritation.”

For Charlotte Netherwood, strategic business consultant at Craft Media, the reason between the disconnect between consumers’ and brands’ preference of channel comes down to what they are looking for: “For consumers, it's about the best user experience with minimal interruptions, so it is unsurprising that a lot of the channels that appear in their favourites feature ads that feel more native to that space.

“For marketers, many of the channels that feature are traditional broadcast (i.e. one way comms to the audience); it is about getting their message out to consumers at scale (albeit in high quality, trusted environments) but comes at the expense of disrupting the customer experience.”

Marketers don’t just want to be where consumers are. They also need to find the specific platforms and solutions that deliver for their brand and business goals. Chris Bunyan, co-CEO at Unfinished Media frankly states that “the most popular media with consumers aren’t necessarily relevant to many brands.

“We won’t be advising a financial services client targeting 45-year-olds to jump on Snapchat or Twitch any time soon. The great news is that there are lots of platforms consumers do love that marketers can trial, test and understand the impact.”

As consumers ourselves, we all know it’s not particularly complicated. “Consumers will always gravitate towards the platforms where the content feels right – where it fits both them and the environment it lives in,” says Lynsey Rollinson, managing partner – strategy & planning at ROAST. “Yes, campaigns are ‘seven times more impactful amongst receptive audiences,’ but that doesn’t mean people want more ads on the platforms they love. If anything, the opposite is true.”

It’s no surprise to Lynsey that Amazon brands dominate. “They’ve got access to huge amounts of data about each of us, and when that information is harnessed intelligently by us marketers, it can drive campaigns that for us are targeted, but for the consumer genuinely relevant and personal.

“Marketers are marketers, preferring the platforms which deliver mass reach, proven track record and necessary targeting to achieve what they need. That's not to say TikTok won't feature on a plan, it's just not their preferred channel, likely because they've had to work bloody hard this year to show it as a viable channel so they can increase investment for 2026!"

Streaming Takes Centre Stage

When it comes to the spend, it’s clear that marketers are putting more money behind streaming platforms to follow where people are watching content. “As more and more people shift their viewing habits from traditional TV into streaming channels, the planning (and investment) will follow,” says Charlotte. “This is also bolstered by the fact that the streaming platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime) only introduced ads relatively recently so investment is catching up to consumer behaviour.”

In fact, this in itself may be a draw for advertisers, Dan suggests. “In the industry where praise was won simply on the back of something being a 'media-first' we can't discount the role of newness as a factor in investment trends,” he says. But it’s also down to these companies’ tech world approach to business. “Marketers have become increasingly dependent on deterministic data from digital investments to provide reassurance that the ad spend is delivering. This expectation is bleeding into TV, with marketers valuing the increased sense of control, flexibility and measurement that streaming provides vs linear.”

Jack at PMG points out that marketers are simply following the eyeballs. The IPA reports that 30% of UK adults now consume ad-supported SVOD weekly, while WARC forecasts double-digit growth in Connected TV. “For marketers, streaming offers the premium quality of TV with the accountability of digital,” he says. “This matters not only for brand equity but also for measurable performance. Streaming platforms increasingly allow for more granular targeting, advanced attribution and the ability to tie ad exposure to outcomes in ways linear TV could not. While social feeds often suffer from clutter and high ad load, streaming environments promise a clearer link between ad exposure and business results, which makes the channel more attractive for both reach and return.”

For Chris, it’s hard to overstate how seismic the move from linear TV has been. “Consumers' use of live TV has changed massively over the last few years,” he says. “BARB data shows that on demand and streamed viewing now dwarfs linear TV viewing for under 34s – and only the 65+ age cohort watch more live TV than on demand content. With targeted data often available with streamers, streaming ads can offer intelligent targeting more aligned to digital buying with efficient cost per thousands and, finally, to some degree effectiveness. Near real time brand uplift reporting (for example from YouTube and Prime) can help guide investment into streaming platforms.”

Further IPA reporting tells a different strand of this story. Lynsey directs our attention to TouchPoints Making Sense (7th edition), which shows that commercial TV still commands the greatest share – 21% of weekly viewing – while SVOD and other online video together account for 12%. “Traditional TV may still dominate in terms of time spent, but streaming carries the edge in terms of targeting precision, as well as the ability to tailor, and tell a story with greater relevance. Which is key for marketers and planners, who strive to not just cut through the noise, but weave a narrative across an ever-expanding ecosystem of screens.”

Lessons for Brands

Dan draws out a familiar, reassuring lesson from the Kantar report. “The key aspect of the report is actually that the medium is the message. Trusted, convenient, environments that respect the user experience, that don't impose heavily upon people, are the most likely to be perceived positively, and that this can have a positive impact on the advertiser. “The emerging trends such as social commerce are only going to work for brands if they can also honour the primacy of the audience experience.”

As always, it’s about understanding the nuance of the information, not just the headlines. “The lesson is to distinguish between what consumers say they like and where they actually are,” says Jack. “Effectiveness still depends on reach and time spent, but preference rankings are a reminder that quality matters.

“Kantar highlights that 45% of brand impact comes from channels working together, and WARC has long reported on the multiplier effect of integration. For brands, this means raising the quality of execution across every touchpoint so that ads feel relevant, native and additive rather than interruptive.

“There is also a performance dimension,” Jack continues. “Cross-channel planning is not just about balance and frequency but about proving incrementality, optimising creative sequencing and linking exposures to outcomes across platforms. Better advertising, not just more of it, combined with smarter measurement, will close the gap between consumer preference and marketer investment.”

Brands must understand their total comms strategy and the different roles that each channel has to play in achieving a job to be done, says Charlotte. “Just because Amazon, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch and Prime Video are consumers' favourites, doesn't mean that you should funnel all of your investment there. There may be a role for them to better engage audiences and drive notice, but it's also likely that there is a role for marketers' favourite channels such as YouTube, Instagram, etc.”

Her second lesson for brands is another one that’s worth every marketer tattooing on the inside of their eyelids: “Consumers prefer advertising that improves their experience and feels native to the platform. With that in mind, how can we create ads that are as entertaining, fun, less intrusive and attention-grabbing in the likes of Spotify, Netflix, YouTube etc. as consumers find in their favourite channels.”

This latest report makes it all the more undeniable that streaming and VOD advertising has to be a key part of brand plans. “We see video as increasingly more effective than static media across social, streaming and on-demand platforms,” says Chris, “typically resulting in higher clicks throughs, longer ad view times and strong brand uplifts.”

For Lynsey, these shifts reaffirm her belief in what agencies like ROAST offer. “Media planning has never been more vital. The challenge now is striking the balance between reach and relevance – stitching together a brand story from countless small interactions across platforms and formats,” she concludes. “Planners and creatives need to work hand in hand, building ideas that are bespoke for the environment they are in. Repurposing? That should be a forbidden word.”