Media Buying
Piggy-Back
The broadcasting of two distinct commercials from the same corporate sponsor presented back-to-back within a single commercial break.
What is Piggy-Back?
A piggy-back is a two-for-one commercial pod from one parent advertiser. A consumer packaged goods company might run a 30-second spot for its premium brand immediately followed by a 30-second spot for its value brand within the same break — both scheduled, tracked, and often discounted as a single unit. The technique maximizes share-of-voice within a single commercial cluster.
Piggy-backs are popular with parent companies that own complementary brands and want to own the consumer's attention in a category during peak moments. The practice has rules: most stations require both spots to come from genuinely the same corporate parent, and the unit rate is usually negotiated as a combined package rather than two fully-rated individual spots.
Why it matters
Often used by large parent companies to promote two distinct sub-brands simultaneously while paying a combined, slightly discounted rate.
Related terms
- Cluster / Ad Pod— A contiguous group of commercial advertisements played sequentially during a designated break in programming.
- Spot Television— Denotes all available commercial advertising time available for purchase from a local television station, encompassing both local and national spots.
- Unit— One distinct commercial message or advertisement, regardless of its total duration or length in seconds.
- Adjacency— An advertising pod positioned immediately next to a specific, high-value program feature, such as a weather report or sports update.