The trouble with such musings is that we’re all likely to forecast what we want to happen rather than what will happen.
Here’s what we’d like to happen.
1/The Google/Facebook duopoly controlling digital advertising will be rent asunder, with other media (or ‘platforms’) getting a break. Wrong – although it might become a tri-opoly (if such a thing exists) including Amazon.
2/Advertisers will rediscover the power of creative broadcast advertising. Wrong, some of them might but the siren-like attractions of personal targeting will continue to win out.
3/Ad agencies (in particular the holding companies) will insist on a fair price for a fair “scope of work.” Nope, they will always cut their cloth to get a deal.
4/Media agencies will forget about being content factories (their way of eating ad agencies’ lunch) because they’re not very good at it. And stick to their last: planning and buying. Nope, they need the incremental income.
5/Nobody will write about WPP for six months apart from reporting its quarterly numbers. Wrong, we all need the readers (guilty as charged.)
6/Ditto Sir Martin Sorrell and S4C. (See above.)
There’ll be more…
