Linear TV—the marketing industry’s equivalent of a landline phone. You know, that thing nobody admits to using, but somehow every grandparent, doctor's office, and customer service hotline still depends on? Every few years, some tech evangelist bursts onto the scene, foaming at the mouth, declaring TV’s death with the same confidence as someone who just discovered intermittent fasting and won’t shut up about it.

And yet, here we are. Still watching. Still buying. Still pretending TV is irrelevant while secretly knowing more about the latest crime procedural than we’d care to admit. Because let’s face it—when that Law & Order marathon rolls around at 2 AM, you’re not scrolling TikTok, you’re glued to that screen, pretending you’re the detective who just cracked the case.

But marketers? They’re in full-blown denial. They’ve shoved TV into the attic alongside fax machines, AOL CDs, and those weirdly heavy first-generation iPods. They treat it like a relic, assuming that if something doesn’t come with a real-time engagement dashboard, it must not be valuable. They ignore the data, the reach, the effectiveness—all in favor of chasing the latest shiny digital trend, even if that trend is a bunch of influencers awkwardly hawking vitamin gummies in their bathroom mirrors.

Enter Alina Jasper, VP of Market at Marketing Architects. She’s not here to coddle marketers or pat them on the back for their “data-driven” digital obsession. She’s here to take a sledgehammer to their misconceptions and remind them that, for all their bravado about digital-first strategies, they’ve been completely gaslit into abandoning one of the most powerful marketing channels in history.

And she’s not here to sugarcoat it.

“TV isn’t just alive—it’s delivering more punch than half the TikTok dances that clog our feed.”

Translation? While marketers are busy drooling over micro-targeted CPMs and influencer engagement rates that collapse the second someone stops doing “get ready with me” videos, TV continues to rake in massive audiences, drive real-world impact, and make actual money—not just likes, shares, and whatever the hell a “brand impression” is supposed to mean in 2024.

So why the heck does the industry keep pretending it’s dead? Because digital platforms have spent years convincing you it is. And Alina Jasper is here to call out that nonsense for what it is: one of the biggest marketing delusions of the modern age.

Let’s be real—marketers have an unhealthy relationship with digital. They’re like that one friend who insists their ex was the love of their life, even though everyone around them knows it was a toxic dumpster fire. Instead of facing reality, they double down, convinced that if they just optimize their strategy one more time, surely those ultra-personalized, micro-targeted digital ads will start driving actual results instead of vanity metrics.

But here’s the kicker: TV still works. And marketers know it, deep down. They just don’t want to admit they’ve been suckered into a decade-long digital hype cycle that’s made them allergic to long-term thinking.

“TV is really harder to measure than a digital channel,” Jasper explains. “And as marketers have gotten more used to digital… we’ve gotten really addicted to those short-term, immediate metrics.”

Jasper calls it out plainly:

“There has been a concerted effort to say that TV is dead. Digital is the only place you should be.”

This isn’t just marketers being lazy—this is a full-blown gaslighting campaign by digital ad platforms that need you to believe TV is obsolete. Why? Because if you start redistributing those ad dollars, you might just notice that your brand awareness, conversions, and actual sales start improving in ways that a bunch of over-targeted, algorithmically-delivered banner ads never did.

And yet, here we are. Instead of facing the truth, marketers keep buying into the same digital fantasy. They chase micro-targeted, hyper-optimized audiences, convinced they’re making the most of their ad spend. They obsess over click-through rates, engagement stats, and vanity KPIs while ignoring the fact that their audience is still watching TV—probably more than they think.

But the crime scene is even messier than that. Because marketers aren’t just avoiding TV—they’re actively sabotaging themselves with a broken, bloated digital strategy that prioritizes instant gratification over long-term impact.

And like any great marketing crime, the culprits aren’t hiding. They’re in plain sight.

Marketing has always had its fair share of bad decisions, but in the age of digital obsession, we’ve entered full-blown clown territory. So, I ask Jasper to play a little game:

What’s the most ridiculous marketing crime?

A) Pretending TV is six feet under when it’s alive and thriving.
B) Betting your entire budget on TikTok influencers whose idea of a CTA is “swipe up if you feel like it.”
C) Claiming ROI metrics that don’t actually mean anything.

Her answer? C.

And let’s be honest—you’ve seen it too. Those magical case studies where some marketer, high on their own data fumes, proudly declares a “4,000% ROI” from a campaign that, upon closer inspection, probably just moved a few widgets around in a way that looks good on paper but means absolutely nothing in real life.

Jasper calls it out: “Getting addicted to any sort of data point or overly focused on poor ROI metrics… that’s going to crush any company.”

And digital platforms? They’re fully in on the con. They’ve made it so easy to measure all these tiny, irrelevant micro-metrics that marketers now think they have a handle on performance when really, they’re just reading tea leaves in a fancier font.

Meanwhile, TV—which actually drives real brand impact, customer loyalty, and long-term revenue growth—gets thrown under the bus because it doesn’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet.

So yeah, Jasper’s right. The real marketing crime isn’t ignoring TV, or even wasting money on TikTok influencers who barely care about your brand.

The real crime is that marketers have confused “measurable” with “meaningful”—and now, they’re drowning in useless data while ignoring what actually works.

If there’s one thing marketers absolutely worship, it’s the delusion that tighter targeting automatically means better results. It’s the marketing equivalent of squeezing an entire suitcase of “just in case” outfits into a carry-on—sure, it sounds efficient, but in reality, you’re just making things unnecessarily complicated and probably missing the big picture.

And Alina Jasper? She’s not buying it.

“If you can target me, it’s going to cost you $20. Or you can target me, my husband, and my neighbors for $10. Like, why would you not pick 10?”

Boom. That’s the math equation every marketer needs tattooed on their forehead. But instead, we’re stuck in the cult of over-targeting, where brands are paying premium prices to reach micro-audiences that are so niche, they might as well be inside a bunker.

And yet, here we are.
Burning cash on hyper-targeted campaigns like we’re sitting at a Las Vegas blackjack table, convinced that the next bet will finally pay off. The real scam? Thinking that your audience is just like you.

“A lot of marketers don’t watch a lot of television. They’re watching streaming. But the reality is that linear still reaches most of the population in the United States.”

That’s the problem. Marketers assume that just because they spend their free time bouncing between HBO Max, Criterion Collection, and a painfully curated YouTube algorithm, their entire audience must be doing the same. But the data says otherwise.

Here’s the hard truth: just because your hipster creative director only watches Succession on HBO Max doesn’t mean your target audience isn’t still tuning into Jeopardy! every night.

And yet, marketing teams are making multi-million dollar decisions based on their own habits rather than looking at the actual numbers.

The result? Bloated CPMs. Rising costs. And brands actively excluding massive swaths of potential customers—all because some strategist with a mustache and a Substack decided traditional media was beneath them.

TV isn’t the problem. Your targeting obsession is. And as Jasper points out, if you just zoomed out a little, you’d be reaching way more people for way less money.

But sure, go ahead and keep paying 30% more per impression just to feel like you’re being “precise.”

Marketers cling to third-party data like a toddler clutching a worn-out stuffed animal—it’s comforting, familiar, and they’re convinced they can’t function without it. But Alina Jasper? She’s here to rip that security blanket away and tell them the truth:

It’s not magic. And it’s probably not even that good.

“A lot of times, third-party data use is just built into the platforms that we buy off of. It’s not easy to move away from it or even sometimes know how to move away from it,” she explains.

In other words: marketers aren’t using third-party data because it’s effective. They’re using it because it’s just… there. It’s baked into ad platforms like an unavoidable upcharge, a default setting that no one questions because they assume the algorithm must know better.

And that’s the scam.

Rather than step back and ask, “Is this actually working?”, marketers just keep swiping their credit cards, crossing their fingers, and hoping that their hyper-personalized, data-driven approach isn’t just a glorified expensive guessing game.

They tell themselves they’re “optimizing.” They throw around buzzwords like “lookalike audiences” and “behavioral intent signals,” nodding solemnly like they’ve cracked the code to human psychology—when in reality, they’re just blindly trusting an opaque data ecosystem that barely holds up under scrutiny.

And Jasper? She’s had enough.

Her suggestion? Actually test other solutions. You know, like people did before the entire industry decided to put their faith in pixel tracking and data brokers.

“Contextual targeting, for example, often works better—without creeping on consumers like a digital peeping Tom.”

And let’s be real—consumers are sick of being stalked across the internet. There’s nothing more unsettling than searching for hiking boots once and suddenly being followed by an army of Timberland ads for weeks like you accidentally joined a digital cult.

Meanwhile, contextual targeting—aka putting ads in front of people when they’re actually thinking about related content—doesn’t require invasive tracking, doesn’t rely on a shady data supply chain, and (surprise!) often works even better.

So why do marketers keep throwing money at third-party data that’s increasingly inaccurate, expensive, and about to be regulated into oblivion?

Because change is hard, and questioning “best practices” requires effort.

But here’s the thing: the brands that actually step back and reevaluate their approach? They’re the ones that win. The rest? Well, they can keep whispering sweet nothings to their crumbling data stacks while wondering why their ad performance keeps tanking.

Of course, no modern marketing conversation is complete without addressing the big, scary AI takeover. Will AI revolutionize advertising, making us all marketing gods with supercharged efficiency? Or is it a Trojan horse, quietly replacing us one algorithm at a time while we convince ourselves we’re still in control?

Alina Jasper, for one, isn’t buying into the panic.

“I don’t think the robots are going to be taking over anytime soon,” she laughs. “The best tools that I’ve seen so far coming from AI came from someone who has subject matter expertise and knows how to take the tools and amplify what they’re already doing.”

In other words: AI is like a power tool—great if you know what you’re doing, dangerous if you don’t.

If you’re a sharp marketer who understands how to use AI to enhance strategy, streamline processes, or automate grunt work, you’re in good shape. If you’re blindly outsourcing your creativity and critical thinking to a chatbot, congratulations—you’re writing LinkedIn posts that sound like an overenthusiastic TED Talk gone wrong.

And let’s be honest—we’ve all seen it. The posts that expand every simple point into some pseudo-philosophical manifesto, dripping with forced optimism, vague empowerment, and absolutely no real-world insight.

Meanwhile, while marketers debate whether AI is a godsend or a death sentence, another issue looms in the background, ignored like a Terms & Conditions agreement no one actually reads: privacy.

Or, as Jasper bluntly puts it: the thing people should be worried about but somehow care less about than their Starbucks points expiring.

“I think that there’s a little bit of a lack of awareness of exactly what’s being tracked… and a lot of people are making a lot of money off of tracking you.”

And she’s not wrong. Consumers love to act outraged when they hear their data is being sold to the highest bidder, but two seconds later, they’re mindlessly clicking ‘accept cookies’ like they’re on a game show buzzer round.

Marketers, meanwhile, pretend hyper-targeted ads aren’t creepy because, well, that’s their whole business model. They assure themselves that as long as the ROI looks good, it’s totally fine that their customers are being followed across the internet like they’re under digital surveillance.

So what happens next? Do we double down on tracking until regulators rip the cord out? Do we embrace AI while hoping it doesn’t replace us? Do consumers finally wake up and demand real privacy protections, or are they too busy panic-refreshing their Starbucks app to make sure their rewards haven’t expired?

If Jasper had one thing to tattoo on every marketer’s forehead? Reach matters.

“There’s this idea that if I’m not reaching the exact person who’s buying my product or service, that I’m wasting dollars. When really the most successful brands in the world are built off of reach.”

And that’s the kicker. For all the industry’s obsession with precision targeting and hyper-personalization, brand awareness still wins. TV—both linear and connected—is one of the most effective ways to build it.

The numbers don’t lie. The brands you recognize, the ones that have staying power, didn’t get there by serving perfectly optimized banner ads to hyper-targeted segments of people who were already in the buying funnel. They got there by being everywhere—by making sure their message was seen, heard, and remembered by as many people as possible.

So next time you hear some digital guru declaring TV dead, do yourself a favor—grab a stiff drink, turn on your TV (yes, the one you swear you never watch), and remember that reach is king.

Or, as Jasper would probably say: stop overthinking it and just put your brand where people can actually see it.