What 80% family CTV viewing means for brand-building

At the first ETBrandEquity Townhall, held on 9 October 2026 at JW Marriott Juhu, Mumbai, senior marketers were asked a blunt question: in a world of AI and connected television, what still makes a brand endure? The answer kept returning to fundamentals—consistency, creativity and the shared screen.

The screen has changed; the sofa has not

Nishit Kanchan, general manager and head of revenue at Samsung Ads India, put it simply: the human behaviour of watching the TV screen has not changed; only the amount of content consumed has.

He described a smart-TV future where a viewer watching a cooking show asks the screen for a recipe, sends it to a connected fridge and builds a shopping list. Yet his punchline was that technology is not the brand-builder. “We have technology, and the most important thing is creative and storytelling,” he said.

The 80% that should reshape your media plan

Pidilite Industries managing director Sudhanshu Vats gave the evening its most useful number: despite streaming’s rise, “80% of CTV viewing is still family viewing.” Overall viewing has only gone up, he added. The implication is that the big screen still delivers lean-back, shared household attention—and marketers can still build cultural relevance there.

Effectiveness is the real long game

Vats warned against trading effectiveness for efficiency. “You can’t sacrifice effectiveness for efficiency if you’re playing the long game, and if you’re building brands, that’s the only game,” he said.

That tension is familiar to brand managers under pressure to justify budgets with ROAS and attribution. A useful frame is Binet and Field’s 60:40 rule: roughly 60% of budget should go to long-term brand-building, 40% to activation. Short-term efficiency can quietly starve a brand’s memory structure.

AI can execute; it should not decide

On AI, Vats drew a clear line: delegate process-driven marketing tasks to AI, but keep the “what” and the “why” of brand-building with marketers. “I believe original ideas are unlikely to come out of AI,” he said. That is an operating principle, not a rejection of the technology.

Fevicol’s no-brief creative habit

Corcoise Films co-founder Prasoon Pandey explained why Fevicol advertising feels so consistent: there is no brief. The agency lives the brand with Pidilite, knows there will be one commercial a year, and starts thinking about the next one as soon as a film is done. “Creative is the foundation of brand-building, and if you rush the foundation, your building is in trouble,” he said.

What is worth stealing

• Keep AI on execution. Automate analysis, optimisation and repetitive tasks; own positioning and ideas.
• Design for the shared screen. With 80% CTV co-viewing, create moments that work with family attention.
• Build one always-on creative relationship. Annual, no-brief relationships produce consistency and fresh work.

The Townhall’s takeaway for brand managers: media changes, distribution changes, AI changes speed—but attention, memory and shared cultural meaning still favour the brand that plays the long game.

Source: ETBrandEquity.com