TV marketing body Thinkbox has launched a free-to-use cross-media optimisation tool, designed to help marketers choose the optimal media mix for their specific business objectives.

Created for medium-to-large advertisers without access to their own econometric analysis, the 'Demand Generator' also forecasts the likely business results of following its guidance in terms of incremental revenue and profit and ROI.

The tool's advice is based on the findings of a new study by Gain Theory, MediaCom and Wavemaker - an econometric analysis of £1.4bn of media spend over three years by 50 brands across 10 forms of advertising.

According to the 'Demand Generation' study, linear TV and broadcaster VOD are the least risky forms of advertising, delivering 20% of variance compared with the median return. Comparatively, online display, cinema, social media and print advertising all exhibited a variability of around 60%.

In terms of boosting the performance of other media channels in a campaign, TV also came out on top - with a boost of up to 54% compared to the average 8%.

Furthermore, TV was found to deliver on average 23% of media-driven sales within the first two weeks of a campaign - the highest of any pure "demand generating" channel. Print followed at 10%.

“Often we do some research, release the findings and that’s that. So it’s wonderful to create something tangible and practical based on such robust insight," said Matt Hill, research and planning director at Thinkbox.

"With marketers increasingly adopting a zero-based budgeting approach, having a tool like this should provide a great evidence-based foundation on which to build their decisions.”

Elsewhere, Jane Christian, managing partner - head of business science at MediaCom, added that the 'Demand Generation' study provides the industry with the "broadest view of media performance to date".

"It goes under the bonnet of what factors drive the optimal media plan for a brand, with The Demand Generator helping advertisers to tailor the result specifically for their brand," she said.