Flighting

Flighting is an advertising scheduling strategy where you run concentrated bursts of advertising for a defined period, go completely dark, and then run another burst. Instead of spreading your budget evenly across the year, you concentrate it in waves with deliberate gaps between them. Retailers, tax software companies, and seasonal businesses use flighting to achieve high visibility during the periods that drive purchases without paying for impressions when nobody is in the market.

Think of flighting like flooding a field in stages: each burst soaks in before you move to the next one.

How Flighting Compares to Other Ad Scheduling Approaches

There are three main ways to schedule advertising. Understanding all three clarifies when flighting makes sense and when it does not.

• Continuous scheduling: Your advertising runs at a consistent level throughout the year with no breaks. This works when you have year-round demand and a budget large enough to sustain constant presence.
• Flighting: You run intensive campaigns in bursts separated by periods of complete silence. This works when demand is seasonal, your budget is limited, or your product has specific purchase windows.
• Pulsing: A base level of continuous advertising with additional spending during key periods. You maintain presence year-round and amplify during peak moments.

Who Uses Flighting and Why It Works

Tax software companies run heavy flighting from January through April and essentially disappear for the rest of the year because their demand follows the filing calendar. Retail jewelers concentrate spending before Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and the holiday season. Back-to-school retailers burst their budgets in July and August.

Concentrating budget into a shorter window lets you dominate specific channels in ways that the same budget spread across 52 weeks cannot achieve. A media buyer spending $200,000 over 8 weeks can command significantly more reach and frequency per dollar than that same budget deployed at $3,846 per week all year.

The Carryover Effect Justifies the Dark Periods

Advertising does not stop working the moment you stop running it. Consumer memory of your campaign lingers after a flight ends. That residual awareness, called the carryover effect, means you receive some brand benefit during dark periods even though you are paying nothing for impressions.

The length of the carryover depends on your category, message clarity, and how recent your last flight was. Products with strong visual identity or simple benefit statements carry over longer than complex services that require repeated explanation.

The Risk: Competitors Win During Your Dark Periods

Going dark creates a window for competitors who advertise continuously to gain share of voice while you are absent. In categories where brand awareness drives purchase decisions, extended dark periods can erode the equity your flights built faster than the carryover effect can sustain it.

Sources

• https://www.nrf.com/research/holiday-retail-trends
• https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business