Hi there, 

Every year, the holiday season brings a surge of demand, larger budgets, and packed media calendars. 

In fact, consumers spent a record $253.4B online during the 2025 holiday season, up 5.3% year-over-year. 

Then January hits. 

Spending slows. Attention scatters. And what’s often labeled a “quiet period” is actually a high-leverage moment for brands that know where attention still lives.

As people scroll, skip, swipe, and split-screen their way through the day, TV stands out as one of the few places where audiences are genuinely tuned in.

This month, we pulled together everything you need to rethink how you show up next:

• ✨ The TV Room is moving (and getting an upgrade)

• 📺 Ritz thinks a Super Bowl ad is all its cracked up to be 

• 🎬 Creative spotlight: Heineken swaps voice notes for beer

• 📊 2026 trends that will define TV

• 📈 Dell drove 50x ROAS: Here’s how

The TV Room is becoming The Ad Break

We’ve got a quick update: The TV Room is officially becoming the Ad Break. ✨

Same team, same performance TV obsession, just a new name and a sharper focus on the things you actually want in your inbox: what’s working, what’s changing, and what to test next.

If you’re enjoying this newsletter and want to keep receiving it without interruption, take 10 seconds to join The Ad Break list.

👉 Subscribe to The Ad Break

Super Bowl 60 ads are already sold out

Super Bowl 60 is officially sold out across broadcast and streaming, with 30-second spots topping $8M ahead of the Big Game on February 8, 2026.

After Super Bowl 59 became the most-watched Super Bowl ever, advertiser demand surged, with brands like TurboTax, PepsiCo, Salesforce, Liquid I.V., Ritz, and Liquid Death securing early commitments.

What this means for advertisers

While official in-game inventory is locked, the surrounding streaming ecosystem has become an integral part of how audiences engage with the event. The Super Bowl is no longer just a single night or a single placement. For brands, that creates opportunities to align with one of the largest moments in TV through premium streaming environments before, during, and after the game.

Explore the complete Super Bowl list

Creative spotlight: “Could have been a Heineken”

Heineken’s latest campaign puts a playful spin on the “could have been an email” meme, calling out our collective habit of replacing real conversations with endless voice notes and reminding people what a beer moment is really for.

The details:

• Built on a clear cultural insight: people send billions of voice notes every day, yet say their most meaningful conversations still happen face to face.

• The hero film cuts through rambling voice messages with a simple line: “But then we ‘don’t have time for a beer,’” before landing on the “Could Have Been a Heineken” message.

• Created by LePub Milan and São Paulo, the campaign launched in Brazil, supported by OOH and social activations, with plans to expand globally.

What we loved: This campaign strikes the right balance between meaning and memorability. It’s built on behavior people instantly recognize, delivered with a light touch, and designed to perform across formats without losing what makes it feel human.

The next wave of TV strategy is taking shape

Attention has never been harder to earn. Customers are splintering across feeds, devices, and screens. That is why marketers are turning to Performance TV, the channel now leading all others in media spend.

tvScientific is hosting a webinar with EMARKETER, Appsflyer, and Cornerstone Media to unpack the new 2026 State of Performance TV report.

👀 Get a first look at the findings shaping 2026.
🗓️ January 27 @ 11am PT
🎙 Hear from panelists from Appsflyer, Cornerstone Media, and tvScientific

🚀 Sign up to receive the report as soon as it’s released

👉 Save your spot at the webinar

How Dell drove 50x ROAS with Performance TV

Dell needed its media investments to do more than reach people. They had to deliver measurable outcomes.

As a well-known technology leader, awareness wasn’t Dell’s challenge. The goal was to drive efficient sales and prove incremental performance across every channel.

Dell partnered with tvScientific to put AI-powered Performance TV to work. tvScientific AI, trained on Dell’s goals, measured every impression and every outcome in real time so the team knew exactly which placements were driving efficient sales and net-new customers.

The results speak for themselves:
 🔥 50x ROAS
 🆕 56% net-new customer acquisition
📺 4.67M unique households at 2.7 frequency
 📈 27% always-on incrementality

Read the full story

Big moments get the headlines, but smart strategies deliver the results.

Now is the moment to test, learn, and set the foundation for what’s ahead.

Happy advertising!

👉The TV Room is becoming The Ad Break. Subscribe to stay on the list.