January 11, 2026

Media Strategy for CPGs: How we kept Busy Bee Raw Honey sticky with holiday shoppers.

December 2025: ‘Tis the season for shopping. And for consumer packaged goods brands, the difference between a good shopping season and a great shopping season depends on being seen at the right time by the right shoppers in the right places.

In today’s crowded landscape, CPG brands win when they show up during the moments when consumer intent is highest. That’s where smart media planning and buying makes all the difference. Cue MediaSpark.

We are experienced in consumer packaged goods marketing, especially in building media plans that drive reach, reinforce relevance and influence shopper behavior. One of the strongest examples of that approach is our recent holiday campaign for Barkman Honey’s Busy Bee Raw Honey, designed to connect with shoppers during the holiday cooking, baking and entertaining season.

The Challenge for CPG Brands: Shelf Competition + Short Purchase Windows

Consumer packaged goods marketing has a unique set of hurdles:

• Shoppers buy quickly and often without deep consideration
• The point of purchase is still typically in-store, not online
• Category competition is intense and crowded
• Seasonality matters and missing a high-volume window has real revenue consequences
• Brand loyalty is fragile, especially in a price-sensitive market

And during the holiday season, these challenges multiply.

Holiday cooking and entertaining creates a surge in demand for ingredients like honey, but it also creates a surge in advertising competition across grocery brands, retailers and food categories.

For Busy Bee Raw Honey, the objective was clear: show up wherever grocery decision-makers are consuming media and make the product feel timely, useful and essential to the season.

Reach + Relevance: How Sweet It Is

Media buying is not just about impressions. At least it shouldn’t be. It’s about creating meaningful exposure that moves people from awareness to action.

For this campaign, our strategy centered on two core outcomes:

• Reach: Maximize visibility during a competitive season
• Relevance: Ensure the message lands with the shoppers most likely to buy honey during holiday routines

Being present in multiple environments was key, especially on the platforms where consumers were searching for recipes.

Be Present to Influence Purchase

Our media strategy for Busy Bee Raw Honey was designed to meet shoppers across both lean-back moments, streaming a show or watching TV with family, and lean-in moments, actively searching for “holiday recipes,” watching cooking and baking demos, scrolling while planning a grocery trip.

Both moments matter. Both influence purchase.

Our integrated campaign blends the emotional power of video storytelling with the precision and frequency of digital targeting.

The campaign ran across:

• Linear Broadcast TV
• Connected TV (CTV)
• YouTube
• Digital Display

This mix allowed the brand to establish top-of-funnel awareness through premium video and reinforce it through high-frequency digital touchpoints, ensuring shoppers didn’t just see Busy Bee Raw Honey once, but repeatedly throughout the season.

Just Press Play: Video + Consumer Packaged Goods

Consumer packaged goods brands benefit from video because it does something static ads can’t: It shows the product in use.

Busy Bee Raw Honey is an ingredient that shows up big for the holidays: baking, cooking, family meals, entertaining. Charcuterie boards, anyone?

Video allows the brand to position the product inside the season itself. It creates emotional association. It makes the product feel like part of the tradition.

And when paired with digital targeting and frequency, that storytelling becomes even more effective.

Audience Targeting: Built on Shopper Behavior

For CPG brands, the best targeting is behavior-based. Demographics can tell you who someone is. Behavior tells you what they’re likely to buy.

For this campaign, our programmatic audience strategy focused on:

• Walmart shoppers
• Kroger shoppers
• Self-identified honey enthusiasts

Households actively engaging in:

• holiday cooking
• baking
• entertaining
• better-for-you, natural ingredients

By layering retail-based audience data with behavioral signals, we were able to reach households most likely to convert in-store.

Geo Strategy: 10 DMAs, Built for Efficiency and Opportunity

National media plans sound exciting, but for Consumer Packaged Goods brands, national spending doesn’t always mean national efficiency.

Availability matters. Distribution matters. Retail footprint matters.

So instead of spreading budget too thin across every market, we deployed strategically in 10 DMAs across the country, selected based on:

• Retail footprint and availability
• Category opportunity
• Regional sales potential
• Efficiency and audience density

This approach created scale without waste. It also ensured that impressions were being delivered where the product was readily available, reducing the risk of driving demand in markets with lower shelf presence.

The Platforms: Premium CTV + YouTube + Broadcast + Display

The campaign was designed to bring both reach and quality through premium placement environments.

Platforms included:

• YouTube
• Hulu
• Disney
• Roku
• Traditional broadcast television

YouTube plays a critical role in reaching large audiences efficiently, especially during cooking and recipe discovery moments. Premium CTV partners provide:

• High-impact placements
• Strong completion rates
• Brand-safe environments
• Deeply engaged viewers
• Better alignment with household decision-making

This combination created broad coverage across screens while maintaining the quality and credibility Busy Bee Raw Honey needs to stand out in a competitive category.

Programmatic for Precision and Speed

Placements for this campaign were purchased programmatically. And for good reason.

Holiday campaigns require speed, flexibility and the ability to pivot as performance data comes in.

Programmatic buying gave us the efficiency and control needed to reach specific audiences—particularly honey shoppers and Walmart/Kroger households—across multiple DMAs during a short, seasonal flight.

It also allowed us to control:

• Frequency
• Viewability
• Audience layering
• Placement quality
• Delivery optimization across channels

Final Thought: Be Seen & Be Relevant

The most successful consumer packaged goods brands build integrated visibility. They show up across the day. Across screens. Across moments of decision-making.

And when the product is sitting on a shelf in a crowded aisle, familiarity is a competitive advantage.

Busy Bee Raw Honey’s holiday campaign definitely showed up, helping increase brand awareness from 6% to 47% YOY. The proof is in the baklava.