A Forrester Consulting study of 620 marketing decision-makers reveals that CTV creative workflows are still hampered by legacy linear TV limitations. Advertisers report difficulty in testing and iterating CTV creative compared to social media, citing a lack of unified measurement and slower production cycles.
The transition to a digital-first streaming model is stalling at the creative layer, where 51% of marketers are still bottlenecked by legacy linear production timelines. This inefficiency prevents brands from leveraging the real-time optimization and testing capabilities that define high-growth channels like social video. As CTV ad spend is projected to rival linear upfronts, the inability to iterate quickly limits the technical ROI of advanced targeting. To close this gap, the tech stack must shift toward automated, unified creative management systems that treat CTV assets as dynamic digital components rather than static television spots. Watch for a rise in AI-driven tools designed to automatically convert social assets into CTV-compliant formats to accelerate these two-day production cycles.
The push for agile creative aligns with broader structural shifts in the advertising market. Per the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in June 2026, U.S. CTV upfront ad spending is forecast to reach $17.73 billion this year, officially exceeding primetime linear TV upfronts for the first time. Despite this maturity in spending, the operational bottleneck remains high. Related data from DigiDay in May 2026 indicates that some performance agencies are shifting budgets back toward social video, where the 13% projected growth rate currently outpaces CTV's 11% due to better creative efficiency and faster optimization cycles.
Technical bodies are responding to these friction points by modernizing back-end protocols. In July 2026, the IAB Tech Lab opened public comments for the "Redefining Media Types" standard, aiming to provide a unified language for cross-platform measurement across CTV, social video, and retail media. This standard addresses the 61% of marketers who cited a lack of unified measurement as a primary hurdle. Simultaneously, platforms like Tubi have integrated AI tools that allow advertisers to generate video assets directly from website URLs, targeting a reduction in the production delays highlighted by Forrester.
Furthermore, premium publishers are consolidating their buy-side tools to mitigate fragmentation. Per Adwave in February 2026, Disney completed the technical integration of Hulu into Disney+, centralizing inventory and measurement under the Disney Campaign Manager. This move aims to provide the "single source of truth" marketers demand, though the Forrester findings suggest that even with unified inventory, the underlying approval processes and legacy creative mindsets must still be overhauled to achieve social-grade agility.
Add StreamingMeme as a preferred source on Google to see more of our streaming news at the top of your Search results.
Add as preferred source