Q&A: Lauren Barnett discusses Samsung Ads’ Total TV strategy for 2026
As CTV budgets keep climbing, marketers are wrestling with a familiar problem: how to plan and measure across a viewing world split between streaming apps, broadcast, and new discovery moments on the home screen. Samsung Ads is currently working to resolve that issue, using new ways and clearer signals to connect the living room screen to real audience behaviour.
New Digital Age spoke to Lauren Barnett, Head of UK Sales at Samsung Ads to find out more…
Tell me about your role. What sort of thing takes up the bulk of your time?
As Head of UK Sales at Samsung Ads, I focus on helping brands and agencies use connected TV in smarter, more meaningful ways. TV is one of the most interesting places to work in advertising right now, and a big part of my role is exploring how CTV can support our partners’ broader media strategies.
Day to day, a lot of my time is spent talking with clients about what they’re trying to achieve, where measurement or insight is missing, and how CTV fits alongside streaming, broadcast and gaming. I also work with our product and data teams to translate real viewing behaviour into practical planning choices and better use of creative on Samsung TVs.
I’m also involved in wider industry conversations around CTV, to help shape where the market is heading and to keep the focus on approaches that genuinely work for viewers and advertisers.
What media channels are advertisers showing strongest interest in at the moment?
CTV continues to draw the strongest interest because it blends the scale and storytelling power of TV with the precision and flexibility of digital. Advertisers are drawn to environments where they can reach big, high-quality audiences but still get robust signals on attention, outcomes and incremental reach.
Within CTV, we see growing focus on three areas:
High‑impact, premium video placements in streaming environments, where TV‑like quality meets digital addressability.
Home‑screen and discovery surfaces on smart TVs, where brands can be present at the moment of content choice rather than interrupting the viewing experience.
Emerging interactive formats such as our own “GameBreak” ad format, that give viewers something to engage with, not just watch.
There’s also a strong push to connect the dots across channels – using data to understand how audiences move between streaming, gaming and broadcast, so campaigns can be planned and measured as a single, coherent story rather than a series of disconnected buys.
Is the fragmentation of the CTV ad marketplace still a big challenge for advertisers?
Fragmentation is still a challenge, but it’s also where Samsung can add real value. Because we sit at the TV level rather than inside a single app, we can see how audiences move across all CTV environments on a Samsung TV, not just within one streaming service.
That means we can help advertisers plan and measure against total TV behaviour – understanding how viewers actually split their time across apps, live TV, gaming and more – instead of stitching together isolated platform reports. With a more unified view of reach, frequency and engagement, it becomes easier to reduce duplication, spot genuine incremental audience, and make smarter decisions about where each CTV impression will work hardest.
The CTV homescreen is becoming more important to marketers. What is driving that?
The CTV home screen is becoming a priority because it’s the front door to the TV experience. Every Samsung Smart TV session begins there, and viewers return multiple times a day, giving marketers consistent, high‑quality reach without having to patch together lots of separate app buys.
Crucially, it’s a true discovery moment. Viewers spend meaningful time deciding what to watch, and many say TV environments help them discover new brands and products, so the home screen now acts as a powerful recommendation surface before a single show has started. When you combine that with streaming inventory, you can build a connected ad journey – from discovery on the home screen, through to deeper storytelling in-stream – that follows the viewer across the session rather than relying on one isolated touchpoint.
For Samsung, that means we can connect brands to audiences at the exact point of choice, reinforce the message once viewing begins, and then prove impact – from uplift in purchase intent to shifts in brand perception – instead of treating the home screen as just another awareness placement.
What key advice/tips would you offer marketers for their 2026 media strategy?
If CTV isn’t already in your 2026 plan, this is the year to get hands‑on with it. The audiences are there, the tools are smart and the brands that learn fastest now will be the ones setting the benchmark over the next few years.
My first piece of advice is to plan for the whole TV journey. Think about how people move from the home screen into streaming apps, then onto other devices, and build a strategy that connects those discovery, viewing and second‑screen moments rather than treating each as a separate buy.
Second, use attention as your North Star. Prioritise placements where viewers are actively choosing what to watch or where formats invite light interaction – that’s where your creative has the best chance of being noticed and remembered.
Finally, get your measurement framework locked in early. Be clear on what success looks like, align on definitions across partners, and make sure reporting is simple enough to inform real decisions. That’s how you turn CTV from “a test” into a repeatable, scalable part of your media mix.
What does success look like for Samsung Ads in the UK in 2026?
Success for us means earning trust as the go-to partner for both bold CTV innovation and crystal-clear outcomes. We’ll help brands navigate fragmentation by uniting home screen discovery with streaming engagement, driving real lifts in brand metrics like purchase intent and perception – as our research consistently proves when these touchpoints work together.
It’s also about elevating the standard for insights and collaboration, so marketers spend less time reconciling data and more time refining creative, frequency and relevance. When the conversation shifts from “Where do I buy impressions?” to “What are viewers actually doing on TV, and how can we respond smarter?”, we’ll know we’ve succeeded – powering sharper strategies and stronger results across the board.
Also published in: New Digital Age
