Over the past several weeks, a compelling argument has resurfaced in industry conversations: If brands dramatically increased digital spend over the last 15 years… why didn’t they grow?

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Fifteen-year revenue data across sectors shows many large advertisers delivered flat or low single-digit CAGR despite shifting aggressively into digital performance media. The conclusion some are drawing is simple: Digital failed. We need to rebalance back to TV.

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It is a clean narrative.
It is also incomplete.

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The more accurate conclusion is not that digital failed.

It is that measurement failed to distinguish incremental growth from attributed activity.

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Switching the Narrative

A core point of the ongoing conversation is that a lot of digital spend is driving non‑incremental sales: money is being spent to reach people who would have bought anyway, especially via retargeting and overly narrow targeting. Data across sectors suggests that brands with heavier TV/broad reach often show stronger growth than those that leaned hardest into digital retargeting, which is framed as evidence that “digital failed” and that spending should shift back toward TV or broad-reach channels.

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The right lens on his argument is incrementality testing, not attribution and not channel stereotypes (“digital vs TV”). RCTs (Randomized Controlled Trials) and geo experiments let you see which digital tactics are actually incremental (e.g., broad prospecting, upper‑funnel video) versus non‑incremental (e.g., heavy retargeting to recent buyers).

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Why The Switch?

First, standard attribution overstates impact. Standard attribution methods systematically over-credit digital touchpoints; research shows overestimation on the order of 20% to 300%+, depending on channel and model. If you rely on attribution alone, you will both overestimate digital impact and misdiagnose what’s working within digital.

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Second, P&G’s performance contradicts a simple “digital failed” story: P&G has delivered ~4% organic growth for around 6 years and nearly 40% better advertising ROI in North America over the past 5 years, while remaining a major digital advertiser. That suggests the problem isn’t “digital” as a category, but how it’s used and measured.

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Third, the sector data is consistent with a mix problem, not a channel problem: In CPG, Hershey (≈5.1% CAGR, 22.8% TV) and P&G (≈0.6% CAGR, 11.7% TV) are both digital‑heavy. The plausible story is that Hershey kept more broad‑reach in its mix, while P&G leaned harder into retargeting. Similar patterns appear in insurance (Lincoln vs Progressive) and pharma (Novartis vs AbbVie). That points to within‑digital allocation as the issue, not digital itself.

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So the “why” is: to separate genuinely incremental tactics from waste, you need to test for incrementality.

Without it, you risk drawing the wrong conclusion (“digital failed”) instead of the more precise one (“certain digital tactics are non‑incremental and should be rebalanced”).

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The “how” is to use incrementality testing as the operating system for media allocation:

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1. Design experiments around specific tactics, not channels: Use RCTs or geo‑split tests that compare:

• Region A: heavy retargeting of past purchasers
• Region B: broad‑reach prospecting / upper‑funnel video

Measure incremental lift in sales or new customer acquisition, not just clicks or attributed conversions.

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2. Quantify incremental lift and reallocate.

If prospecting/upper‑funnel tactics show meaningful incremental lift and retargeting shows low or no incremental lift, shift the digital budget toward the former. The goal is to shrink non‑incremental spend, not abandon digital.

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3. Apply this playbook by brand and category.

Repeat the same structure in CPG, insurance, pharma, etc. Use brand‑level tests to understand where each brand’s “green field” really is, who you’re reaching that wouldn’t have bought otherwise, and tune mix accordingly.

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4. Use TV/broad reach and digital together.

Instead of framing TV as the winner and digital as the loser, use incrementality to find the optimal combination: broad‑reach channels to build demand, and incremental digital tactics to harvest and extend it.

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In that sense, the “Green Field” framing is directionally right: the real opportunity is to find where incremental growth comes from. The missing step is using incrementality testing to do that work, then rebalancing the mix based on evidence rather than on aggregate, cross‑company patterns.

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Measurement, not medium, is the real determinant of growth.

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