Key discussion

• With technology continuing to improve and the known pitfalls of both Advertising technology and Marketing technology apparent, a convergence of these technologies will take place sooner rather than later giving more control to advertisers
• Designing an advertising campaign has always been slow and somewhat clunky, however new technology platforms are speeding up the optimisation process allowing campaigns to be improved and optimised in real time
• However, this increased control means little if the vast majority of inventory and customer data is controlled by a small number of players
• Barriers to entry in the advertising space have fallen with the dominance of Google and Facebook. This fall in entry costs has allowed small to medium enterprises to freely enter the market and become advertisers
• There is one thing in common with Google, Facebook and Amazon: the consumer. Each of these companies has tapped into the consumer whether that be what they search, what they like or what they buy. As advertisers are trying to reach consumers, they will inevitably have to use these platforms to both gather insights and reach consumers
• However, consumers know this and are expecting brands to provide better customer experiences. Over 50% of consumers are likely to switch brands if companies do not personalise communications
• Publishers that rely on pure ad-funded content are struggling to generate an ROI which threatens their viability and raises questions about the impact of the Google and Facebook duopoly
• The last 18 months have seen the re-emergence of the paid/premium content revenue model for publishers
• Traditional advertising formats aren’t going away anytime soon. One interesting trend is that tech giants are increasing their ad spends on traditional formats such as television