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Watch an hour of Fox News Channel, and you’ll no doubt see the usual commercials from pharmaceutical giants and auto companies. Increasingly, you may also encounter Anna Brakefield or her father, Mark Yeager, talking about their upstart family business while standing in an honest-to-goodness cotton field.
“We’re proud to say that 100% of our products are made right here in the U.S.A.” says Yeager, whose family owns and operates Red Land Cotton, in one spot, dressed in a farmer’s hat and a gray button-down shirt. Brakefield tells viewers in a separate commercial that her family’s textiles all start “with a seed in the ground, a hope, and a prayer.”
Brakefield says the company was accustomed to reaching customers via digital media, and accordingly put its focus on finding customers online. “We built where we are with Google ads, Meta ads — all that you’d typically think an e-commerce business would grow their advertising on,” she says. But her father, a 60-year old farmer in northern Alabama, is “a religious Fox News watcher, and so it was his idea to approach Fox about an advertising opportunity.” The company tested commercials on Fox News in 2023, she says, “and to my surprise, it was successful.” Now, Red Land Cotton tries to maintain a regular presence on “Fox & Friends” and “America’s Newsroom,” along with some commercials on “The Five.”
“‘I saw you on TV,’” says Brakefield. “That is still a thing for people.” Now, she and her father are quickly becoming as important to Fox News as Madison Avenue stalwarts like Novo Nordisk and Lowe’s.
Fox has sold ads to a growing number of companies that in a previous era might not have run TV commercials. A regular Fox News viewer might in recent weeks have seen spots from Blue Compass R.V.; the Good Ranchers meat-delivery service; Boll & Branch luxury bedding; or Fire Department Coffee, which was founded by a former Navy veteran with experience working as a firefighter and paramedic in Illinois. In some cases, Fox News sales staff have found these sponsors by listening to podcasts and watching video programs on social-media outlets, searching for advertisers that might find favor with Fox News viewers. Some might make all their goods in America. Others might seek a faith-based audience.
Commercials for smaller businesses represent “one third of our national business right now,” says Trey Gargano, Fox News Media’s executive vice president of ad sales during a recent interview, and it’s not something owed to happenstance. Fox News has since the start of 2024 made a priority of finding independent companies that often spotlight patriotic themes or other elements that might appeal to its core viewers, then lined them up to sponsor its programs. “Sometimes they are veteran owned. Sometimes, a CEO we know is like-minded and wants to reach the audience on Fox News,” Gargano adds.
Fox News isn’t the only TV outlet thinking small to get big. Several media giants have been on the hunt for so-called “SMB” advertisers — or “small-and-medium-sized businesses” — for the past several years. NBCUniversal said in July that it had seen a 30% uptick in ad buys from “SMB” clients. Hulu, now part of Disney, in 2020 offered use of a “Hulu Ad Manager” that would allow advertisers willing to spend at least $500 on the streamer’s commercials to launch, manage and track the commercials. Paramount Global last year named a new senior vice president to oversee all its efforts tied to “SMB Advertising.”
“SMB ads have become more important as TV publishers try to maximize, diversify, and increment their advertising’s yield,” says Nikhil Lai, a principal analyst with Forrester who tracks the advertising industry. “SMB advertisers are saturating search and social, which have diminishing returns. They need to scale acquisition without escalating acquisition costs, so they turn to TV.”
The TV networks have been chasing what are in many cases unlikely national TV advertisers while many traditional Madison Avenue categories are in the midst of significant change. Ad spending from big auto companies has been in flux since the coronavirus pandemic, according to various TV ad-sales executives, as manufacturers struggled with supply chain issues, and then how much of their product lines to convert to electric vehicles. Beverage makers are grappling with consumers’ desires for healthier fare, and sales of beer and soda have ebbed. And now, one of TV’s sturdiest sources of ad spending, pharmaceutical marketers, are fretting over potential restrictions from the Trump administration that could potentially force them to run longer ads to detail potential side effects; the costs of doing so could spur them to be more careful about how they use their ad dollars.
At the same time, some of the marketers who are thriving are upstarts who cultivate online crowds. Today’s digital entrepreneur might be tomorrow’s Wayfair or Warby Parker, and big media companies want to strike partnerships now.
And while Fox News is enjoying a noticeable ratings surge in President Trump’s second term in office, it is not immune from the challenges all traditional media outlets continue to face. Fox News Channel is projected to see overall advertising decline over the next two years, according to estimates from Kagan, a market-research firm that is part of S&P Global Intelligence. Ad spending at Fox News is seen falling about 5% from $1.44 billion in 2024 to about $1.36 billion through the end of 2026. Advertisers tend to spend more highly on cable-news networks during a significant election year, like 2024, when a broader set of viewers tend to watch.
Some of the smaller advertisers require a personal touch. In some cases, says Gargano, Fox News sales executives fan out to make a pitch directly to a company’s founder. “You are going to their house, or their ranch. They invite you in,” he says. “They ask for an awful lot, and it’s an education for them,” because typically they have little experience with buying and running TV ads.
The entrepreneurs behind Grill Rescue, a grill-cleaning tool that relies on steam cleaning rather than wire bristles, have only been advertising on Fox News Channel for a few weeks. They had largely stuck to digital advertising, but grew intrigued when the McLemore Boys, a father-and-son cooking duo, were barbecuing during a “Fox & Friends” segment and briefly mentioned their product. Anthony Tranchida, one of the founders, noticed.
“I always had the belief that the new age of advertising is online,” he says. After launching TV commercials on Father’s Day, he says, “we are spending millions with Fox,” and might consider other TV outlets, too.
He was impressed by the network’s willingness to put him in touch with other small advertisers who bought commercial inventory. “I asked them, ‘You’re asking me to put quite a bit of money into advertising on the network. I’ve never done this before. I want a little bit of reassuring,’” recalls Tranchida, who sometimes appears in his company’s ads. “Everyone else is like, ‘Nope, we don’t do that.’ Fox made it their mission to find someone.”
He puts a lot of emphasis on monitoring the company’s sales channels after a TV ad runs. “You can see pretty clearly if stuff comes in,” he says, “Whenever an ad runs, what comes in within the next hour or so?”
Many of the ads spark recognition, says Red Land Cotton’s Brakefield, but what really gets consumers interested are the occasional appearances executives can make on shows like “Fox & Friends” in lifestyle segments. Of course, such cameos likely hinge on having a strong relationship with the network — much as they would for a product placement created for a major blue-chip sponsor. “The more segments you can hit, it’s definitely the way to go,” says Tranchida. But “I don’t think they just hand those things out.”
(Above, pictured: Anna Brakefield, owner, Red Land Cotton, in a commercial that has aired on Fox News Channel)
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Brian Steinberg
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