LAS VEGAS — The connected TV advertising market has exploded in scale, but some in the industry say it’s still searching for the fabled combination of right-moment, right-message.
That’s the philosophy driving a renewed focus on “context-first planning”, which moves beyond demographic proxies.
“We are big believers in context-first planning, and that’s important because it allows us to identify growth moments that are more important for a given brand or business throughout a planning cycle,” said Jackie Lyons, Chief Planning Officer at Havas Media Network, in this video interview with Beet.TV at CES 2026.
AI transforms audience intelligence into action
The agency is doubling down on AI technology to enhance its strategic capabilities. At CES 2026, the company unveiled AVA, a global portal designed to connect its workforce with advanced large language models to support planning and creativity.
The integration of artificial intelligence is reshaping how planners connect audience insights to media buys. Where, previously, agencies might have accumulated vast intelligence about how audiences think and behave, that knowledge often remained siloed from activation.
“That can now be matched through agentic (software) and pulled directly into our buys, which is a huge opportunity,” Lyons said. “It changes the dynamic from thinking of things like demos and proxies to thinking of way more sophisticated ways of buying CTV.”
The potential extends to do granular psychological targeting. “What personality types respond better to horror? That type of connection is where we’re going in the future,” Lyons explained. U.S. CTV ad spending is projected to reach $37.70 billion in 2026, according to eMarketer, suggesting a runway for such sophisticated approaches.
Attention metrics power smarter budget allocation
Beyond AI, attention measurement has become central to planning effectiveness. Lyons described herself as passionate about the discipline after two decades in communications planning.
“Understanding what levers we’re pulling from a comms perspective is essential, and attention plays such a significant role in that,” she said. The agency maintains global partnerships with Lumen and, in the U.S., Adelaide, providing two distinct data sets that power its attention planning tools.
These tools help planners determine optimal budget allocations across video platforms and channels. “For the same budget, we have a way of using AI and tech to establish what the right mix is for a given budget basically, to generate higher attention,” Lyons said.
You’re watching “The Road to CES 2026: Planning and Buying CTV the Way Viewers Watch”, a Beet.TV Leadership Series, presented by Gracenote. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
