The great reach trap: Ehrenberg-Bass got marketers focused on growth; many turned it into a race for cheaper impressions instead

(Originally published on Mi3).

Cheap reach is leaving growth on the table. 

Cheap reach has become marketing's default setting. It's easy to buy, easy to justify and easy to defend in a post-campaign report. Broad reach, penetration and mental availability remain the right objectives, but somewhere along the way, reach became the objective itself.  CPM became the proxy for effectiveness, and growth became assumed rather than earned. 

The Ehrenberg-Bass playbook has been one of the most important contributions to modern marketing. It rightly shifted brands towards penetration, mental availability and category growth. The science isn't wrong, but its interpretation is. What began as a growth framework has increasingly been flattened into a media buying formula: maximise reach, minimise CPM and assume growth follows. 

The result is that many brands are now optimising for the cheapest impression rather than the quality of attention being bought and the role media plays in creating memory. That's where growth gets left on the table. Not all impressions are created equal. Some are actively seen, processed and stored in memory. Others are technically delivered but barely register. They appear in reporting dashboards but never make it into the minds of consumers. 

Our latest Cost of Dull research findings have exposed just how significant this issue has become, proving only 20% of impressions receive meaningful attention, while billions of dollars of media investment are being lost in low-attention environments that are seen but not remembered. Brands don't grow through exposure alone; they grow through memory. Mental availability is built when people notice, process and remember a brand over time. If attention is weak, memory formation is weak. If memory formation is weak, future choice becomes less likely. For CPG brands, this matters more than ever. These are categories won and lost through habit, familiarity and split-second decisions. People don't stand in the supermarket comparing every option; they reach for what comes to mind. 

The question for marketers isn’t: "What delivers the lowest cost impression?" It's: "What combination of environments creates memory, builds fame and drives future choice?" 

Because the real cost of cheap reach isn't the media investment, it's the missed growth opportunity.  
 

If everyone follows the same playbook, where does growth come from? 

Today, most CPG brands are working from a remarkably similar media blueprint. Broad reach, light buyers, TV, Digital Video, Retail Media. The same planning principles, same channels, same optimisation rules. Which raises a simple question: if everyone is following the same playbook, where does competitive advantage come from? 

The answer isn't abandoning reach; it's improving the quality of it. Growth doesn't come from reach alone. It comes from reach that is noticed, remembered and reactivated at the moments that matter. Which is where cinema and retail outdoor become more powerful than many marketers realise. 

From attention to action: how cinema and outdoor work together as one system.  

Cinema and retail outdoor are often planned separately. Consumers don't experience them that way. In reality, they operate as two parts of the same system, particularly for CPG and retail categories where behaviour is driven by routine, context and proximity to purchase. 

Cinema remains the highest-attention advertising environment at scale, creating the conditions for memory, emotional engagement and fame. It doesn't simply deliver impressions; it creates lasting mental availability. It becomes even more important during key retail periods like school holidays, Christmas and other family-led consumption moments when category demand increases and brands compete harder for share of mind. 

Cinema creates demand before consumers ever enter a store. 

Retail outdoor plays a different but equally important role. 

As Australia's biggest retail outdoor network by footprint, VMO operates closer to the moment of purchase, reconnecting consumers with brands as they move through neighbourhood centres, convenience trips, top-up shops and everyday retail journeys. It doesn't need to build memory from scratch; it reactivates memory that has already been created. 

Cinema creates demand. Retail outdoor captures it in motion. 

Cinema builds mental availability. Retail outdoor reconnects it to purchase. 

Individually, both channels are powerful. Together, they create a connected system that moves consumers from attention to action. 

Turning attention into outcomes: where measurement connects the system.  

The challenge for marketers isn’t proving attention matters.  It's proving what attention delivers. That's where our new intelligence platform, Validate, changes the conversation. 

Not as a reporting tool, but as the connective layer between planning decisions and business outcomes. On the planning side, Validate helps brands identify and activate real Category Entry Points; the moments, needs and triggers that genuinely drive behaviour. From easy family dinners and after-school snacks to treat occasions and top-up shopping missions, planning becomes aligned with how categories are actually entered and bought. On the measurement side, Validate connects exposure to outcomes, linking media investment to category growth, sales impact and share movement within the broader media mix. 

The result is a more accountable approach to growth. One that doesn't just tell brands how many people were reached, but what people remembered, what people acted on and ultimately what moved. 

The future of media effectiveness isn't about finding cheaper reach. It's about understanding which attention creates memory, which memory drives choice and which environments turn both into growth.