Batteries Plus is looking to TV ads for a boost in brand awareness, and some bang for its marketing buck, said Chris McGee, Vice President of Marketing, at the retail chain.

“We see TV still — while yes, it gets a bad rap — it’s still from a pure reach perspective, is the most cost-effective channel to reach consumers,” McGee said.

Some marketers have pulled back their spending on linear TV ads, as consumers have shifted to streaming services and linear ad performance is harder to measure than performance media or even connected TV. But the channel still plays a valuable role, McGee said. Which is why TV is among the top channels Batteries Plus spends its marketing dollars, including for its most recent national campaign, “Battery Pack.”

Batteries Plus Showcases Its Employees

The spots highlight what McGee calls the retailer’s largest differentiating factors: its 740 stores and the associates inside. The brand unveiled the first iteration of this campaign, “Experts in Charge,” in 2025, and new for 2026 is the refreshed angle of focusing on the brand’s helpful employees.

“That is really the benefit that we, as a company, bring to the table,” McGee said. “When you walk into a store, you’re going to have this experience, you’re going to meet an expert, they’re going to help you with your broken phone, your dead car battery. That’s what makes us stand out and stand apart from our competition.”

The humorous spots highlight this, showing associates that appear to be friends that love batteries, aiming to please store shoppers in an almost competitive format. The scenario is not so farfetched and is inspired by the retailer’s own “Plus Games” at its annual convention, McGee said. Associates compete to see who can change a car battery or replace a key fob and program it in the fastest time.

“We were just sitting there at this convention and we were like, wow, these people truly know what they’re doing, have a true passion. The excitement level was amazing,” McGee said. “Coming out of that convention, we were like, let’s just really push this concept. Yes, it’s ‘Experts in Charge,’ but let’s show the fun side and the passionate side of the associates and their expertise.”

The goal is to be memorable, as its competitors in the auto space spend considerably more than Batteries Plus does, she said.

Batteries Plus Changes its TV Buying Strategy

The brand changed its TV purchasing strategy for the 2026 campaign to reach its target audience on cable at a lower price than the campaign last year, McGee said.

“It reaches our audience even more often or has better reach than your standard broadcast buy, but at a very reduced cost,” she said. “We were able to cut costs down significantly between 2025 and 2026 by looking at buying different inventory, that cable inventory, which was a substantially lower cost than what we were getting with broadcast.”

Because the cost is lower, Batteries Plus is purchasing more inventory and running multiple spots. Instead of one commercial that touches on all of its services — a car battery, a boat battery, a key fob, phone repair and more — like it previously has done, Batteries Plus is running commercials focusing on each of those services.

Because of the breadth of services Batteries Plus offers, its target audience is wide:  consumers ages 25-65. This also means the retailer has different competitors depending on what shoppers need. With spots that focus on each specific service, the retailer can target which spot it wants to run on each cable channel that fits the target audience.

The brand is running the campaign now to capitalize on the seasonal batteries that consumers are typically replacing in the spring, such as boat and RV batteries, she said.

TV is a Quarter of The Retailer’s Paid Marketing Budget

Of all of Batteries Plus’ paid channels across national and local markets, TV is roughly a quarter of the retailer’s paid marketing spend, McGee said. It’s the second largest marketing channel spend, with paid search topping it, she said.

TV marketing still has a strong return on investment for Batteries Plus, McGee said. The retailer pulls its marketing mix modeling twice a year and will have a clearer idea of its return on ad spend for the 2026 campaign in July. Right now the expectation is that these spots will deliver a higher return than last year’s campaign.

TV is especially important to increase the retailer’s brand awareness, which is a key metric it wants to improve, she said.

Across the entire U.S., brand awareness is around 55%. For markets where it has stores and thus more media spend in those markets, its awareness can reach up to 60%, she said.

The brand is running the campaigns for two weeks on and then two weeks off for the rest of 2026, which McGee expects will deliver more consistent brand awareness than its usual month on, month off strategy, or just spikes of spending in the spring and fall. When Batteries Plus ran the ads in April, it did notice an uptick in awareness, she said.

“We’re excited to see with that different buying strategy, if we can maintain that awareness more than just those spikes that we’re seeing when we spend,” McGee said. “We can really stretch that awareness out and maintain it. We know how important frequency is to maintaining awareness. And when we are heavy one month and really light the next, we’re not able to maintain that frequency.”