Why Video’s Impact Extends Across Channels and Down the Funnel 

Executive Summary 

For pharmaceutical advertisers, video across Linear, Connected TV (CTV), and Online Video (OLV) is a critical performance multiplier that elevates the entire media ecosystem. By combining emotional storytelling, scale, and trusted environments, premium video builds the familiarity and trust essential for complex healthcare journeys, creating a measurable cross-channel “halo effect” that primes audiences before they interact with lower-funnel touchpoints. CMI Media Group campaign data demonstrates this direct downstream impact: oncology campaigns revealed branded search lifts exceeding +100% and paid social click-through rates outperforming benchmarks by more than fourfold among video-exposed audiences. Ultimately, video generates consumer demand, search captures it, and social amplifies it. To fully capitalize on this dynamic, healthcare brands must abandon channel silos and plan video as a synchronized, full-funnel system—aligning audience definitions, coordinating messaging across screens, and leveraging cross-channel attribution and incrementality testing to properly value video’s role in accelerating the patient journey. 

The Halo Effect 

 Through its scale, reach, frequency, and presence in trusted programming, Linear introduces disease-state and brand messages to patients, caregivers, and HCPs, building familiarity, understanding, and consideration before audiences encounter downstream digital touchpoints. Exposure to a linear ad can prompt audiences to search for a condition or brand, visit a product website, engage with social content, or seek additional information.   

Rather than operating in a silo, video acts as a strategic channel, generating a powerful halo effect that actively accelerates and optimizes every other channel in the media ecosystem.  This halo effect refers to the measurable lift video exposure created across other media channels by increasing brand familiarity, trust, engagement, and conversion propensity before a consumer ever clicks a lower-funnel ad.  High-quality video assets, spanning Linear, CTV, OLV, and short form, directly propel downstream actions, driving quantifiable lifts in search and social performance.  Ultimately, video builds the market demand, SEM captures it, and social amplifies it, creating a synchronized and effective, high performing Pharma media ecosystem. 

For example, Judy helps care for her mother, who is living with Dementia. One evening, while watching Dancing With The Stars with her phone in hand, she sees a TV ad for a treatment option. The ad introduces the brand and encourages viewers to speak with a healthcare professional. Later, wanting to learn more, Judy searches for the brand on her phone. A paid search result takes her to the product website, where she reviews information about who may be eligible, potential benefits and risks, and questions to discuss with her mother’s clinician. She then chooses to visit the brand’s social page and sign up for additional information. At her mother’s next appointment, she brings her questions to the clinician. 

The TV ad hasn’t made a treatment decision for Judy; it has helped make the brand familiar and prompted her to explore it through other channels. In a campaign, that halo might show up as increased branded search, deeper website engagement, or stronger social and email response among video-exposed audiences.  

Impact on Digital Media: CMI Media Group’s Campaigns Demonstrate Downstream Performance Impact 

CMI Media Group’s Pharma campaign analyses have demonstrated that Linear TV and CTV can drive meaningful downstream digital performance extending video’s impact well beyond awareness.  Across Oncology campaigns targeting patients, video exposure drove measurable increases in branded search demand, website engagement, and Paid Social efficiency, including: 

• Branded Search: Lifts exceeding +100% among exposed audiences, surpassing CMI Media Group’s benchmark of +57% 

• Website Engagement: Significant spikes in post-exposure site traffic 

• Paid Social: CTRs outperforming CMI Media Group’s benchmark of 0.69% by more than 4x 

• Premium Live Sports: Immediate engagement signals within hours of ad exposure, demonstrating video’s ability to accelerate consideration and action, even among highly qualified oncology audiences 

These findings are further supported by third-party research.  Recent research from Tatari found that brands exposed to TV advertising experienced significantly stronger downstream digital performance, with more than half of the brands analyzed reporting substantial differences in conversion rates between TV-exposed and unexposed audiences.  Notably, one-third experienced conversion rates more than double those of the comparison group. 

Collectively, these findings reinforce that video is not simply an awareness driver, but a performance multiplier that can strengthen lower-funnel channels and improve the efficiency of the broader media ecosystem. 

Why Video Creates a Halo Effect 

According to the Annals of Family Medicine, in an analysis of 38 direct-to-consumer prescription drug TV ads, 95% used emotional appeals, underscoring the medium’s ability to make complex conditions and treatment decisions more relatable.  By combining sight, sound, narrative, and repeated reach, linear can build familiarity, emotional resonance, and brand linkage before audiences encounter search, social, or other digital touchpoints.   

Premium linear TV can contribute to a halo effect by prompting additional viewer interest and activity.  Paid search and social may help capture or reflect that response, while display and CRM can help reinforce or drive interest among people who subsequently engage.  The extent of these cross-channel effects will vary by campaign.  CMI Media Group case studies have shown that television advertising can promote increases in keyword searches while broader cross-media studies have found positive interaction effects between traditional and digital advertising.  This is especially important in healthcare, where patients may navigate extended decision-making journeys and weigh multiple sources of information before taking action. 

Case Studies  

1. CTV and Paid Search: Brands running coordinated CTV and SEM strategies often see improved branded search efficiency and higher site engagement rates following premium video exposure.  

2. Linear and Social Amplification: Tentpole TV moments frequently drive increased social engagement and conversation volume during and immediately following campaign flights.  

3. CTV’s Triple Impact: CTV generated halo effect across the full funnel, driving lifts in brand awareness, favorability, and consideration, while amplifying downstream digital engagement. 

Recommendation for Advertisers: Plan Video as a Connected, Full-Funnel System 

For advertisers, the opportunity is to plan and measure video as a coordinated, full-funnel system rather than a collection of isolated channels. This requires closer collaboration across Video, Audience Strategy, Search, Social, Creative, and Analytics teams to align audience priorities, messaging, channel roles, investment, and measurement against shared business objectives. 

• Align channel roles to the full funnel. Use Linear TV to build broad reach, awareness, and cultural relevance; CTV to extend addressable reach in premium streaming environments; and OLV to reinforce messaging and engagement across digital touchpoints. Coordinate video with Search and Social to capture and nurture demand generated throughout the consumer journey. 

• Connect audience strategy and creative messaging. Establish consistent audience definitions and a complementary messaging strategy across channels. Use premium video to introduce a condition, build brand familiarity, and communicate key messages, while aligning Search, Social, and other digital touchpoints to reinforce those messages and support audiences as they seek additional information or consider treatment options. 

• Measure direct performance and cross-channel effects separately. Evaluate direct outcomes, such as video exposure followed by a site visit or other measurable action, alongside indirect or halo effects, such as changes in branded search activity, engagement with Social, and conversion behavior among audiences exposed to video. Use attribution to understand the touchpoints associated with observed outcomes, halo measurement to assess how video exposure relates to activity across other channels, and incrementality testing to determine whether video generated outcomes that would not otherwise have occurred. 

• Implement cross-screen measurement and optimize holistically. Establish measurement approaches that account for deduplicated reach, frequency, audience overlap, and downstream outcomes across Linear TV, CTV, and OLV. Evaluate performance alongside Search and Social metrics to understand video’s broader contribution, inform investment decisions, and avoid undervaluing channels whose impact may not be captured by last-click attribution alone. 

This approach recognizes that, particularly in healthcare, awareness, education, and trust can influence patient and caregiver behavior well before a measurable conversion occurs. By aligning audience strategy, creative, channel activation, and measurement from the outset, advertisers can better understand video’s cumulative contribution across the patient journey and optimize investment against both immediate response and longer-term business objectives. 

Conclusion 

In essence, video acts as the foundational layer of trust, engagement, and memorability.  When executed strategically, it doesn’t just perform well in isolation, it elevates the entire digital marketing ecosystem, making your SEM efforts more cost-effective and your social media presence more impactful and influential.  The halo effect can occur when video is integrated into a broader media strategy, creating opportunities to influence engagement and performance across other channels. 

Authored by: Debbie Makrakis, VP, Video Investment 

Collaborators: Toby Katcher, SVP Video Investment and Brittany Hernandez, Director, Video Investment