“I worry my Christmas shopping list was a very depressing ghost of a future in which brands cease to exist and we all just buy the products the algorithm tells us to.” (Senior ad agency executive).
We explore how Alibaba and Amazon are up-ending brands and advertising. More than just countering Google and Facebook, they bring additional risk to our coverage.
Despite their recent efforts, agencies remain overweight “traditional” branding advertising and underweight Amazon and Alibaba. Shrinking brand building budgets bode ill for broadcasters. We expect organic growth, margins and ROCE to erode in both segments.
Yet, the e-commerce marketing revolution will have its winners: within our coverage, we see Ascential (+) and Criteo (=).