Despite the emergence of October sales events and December's strong sales performance last year, Black Friday remains the premier event for retailers. Last year, the NRF found that an estimated 197 million consumers, up from their initial prediction of 183.4 million, shopped during the five-day holiday weekend between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. As this holiday shopping weekend maintains its crown as the tentpole event for consumers, retailers continue to react in kind, focusing a significant amount of their ad dollars around Black Friday.
"It's a shame because on paper everything suggests that CTV should actually perform better. There's less ad clutter. You can't skip ads. You can be more targeted. There's so many positives to it. But I think price is probably one of the biggest barriers."