Adland in the era of Trump

Most industries are feeling the effect of US President Donald Trump and his regular attempts to hold the world to ransom through a mixture of power and money (interchangeable in the Trump lexicon.)

This morning the prospect of a full-on global energy crisis appears to have abated somewhat as Trump has backtracked on his threats to destroy Iran so the oil may start to flow again. For a couple of weeks anyway.

But the prospect of more than two years of Trump still to go is a nightmarish prospect for most businesses, unless you happen to be among the Donald’s friends – the Tech Bros (below), cyber gang and whoever’s profiting from the seesawing oil price.

Adland finds itself more than ever at the mercy of the likes of Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram), Google (one of whose alumni is now running the BBC) and Amazon. Billings are going up, margins cut to ribbons. There’s also, of course, the curse of Artificial Intelligence, also fuelled by the vast fortunes of the tech giants, now including Nvidia and OpenAI.

The big media agencies, mostly owned by the big ad holding companies, have fuelled the rise of the tech platforms by shifting most of their client adspend there, in the full knowledge that fraud is rife. It was easier and cheaper for them but now they find they no longer control the budgets. The big PR companies, mostly owned by the ad holding companies, have gloried greedily in the $60bn or so Big Tech spends to keep its opponents at bay and legislators (chiefly in Washington) mostly on side.

A few years ago the big story in adland was ‘purpose,’ could brands profit from doing good? That was ultimately untenable. But not many people expected what’s replaced it: