In 2017, the Advertising and Marketing industry witnessed significant progress, and many challenges, from the evolution of voice search to the spotlight on video powerhouse YouTube for significant brand safety issues.
The programmatic landscape, faced with growing concern over fraud, ad blocking, and brand safety, nonetheless continued to grow, driven primarily by online video and social media. Indeed, video appears set to expand at an annual rate of 17% and social at 16% through 2020, according to the head of forecasting at Publicis’ Zenith unit.
With this kind of growth in video likely, YouTube looks set to bounce back after a rocky 2017. Despite losing advertisers and experiencing backlash against content and brand safety issues, YouTube will likely benefit from a repositioned value proposition, and hike price rates accordingly.
Digital marketing trends like the growth of AI and the relentless march of programmatic advertising continue to demand more understanding as to their effectiveness. As such, the adoption of third party data services and the activation platforms used to plan, target, and measure them has blossomed into a $20B+ industry.
As for Social – Facebook is maturing, Snapchat is getting older, and Linkedin users are getting rich.
Some traditional media saw better than expected gains in 2017, particularly within the Primetime Broadcast and Cable Upfront markets, where networks saw increased revenue (+6% to $19.7B) and increased Cost-per-Thousands (CPM) (+8-9% YoY).
Revenues may be up, but TV still has a long way to go in terms of delivering the kind of features Digital advertisers take for granted. While some cable networks offered Advanced Targeting buys, and programmatic and addressable TV is (modestly) on the rise, concerns (and blame) still abound on both network and agency sides around TV’s reluctance to match the Digital ad industry in targeting, transparency, and measurement.
What’s next in the world of media?
The future is not just for self driving cars and jumpy humanoid robots.
The utility of digital assistants and voice search have lead to accelerated sales growth and adoption of this new tech, which will inevitably drive new user behaviors. Looking ahead, publishers and marketers need to make sure they’re adapting their sites, data, internal resources and knowledge, to prepare for continued growth and opportunity in the voice-driven segment.
And although programmatic display continues to expand, smaller Private Marketplaces and Premium Audience platforms are becoming more prevalent, in response to concerns about fraud and desire for more brand-safe content.
Unsurprisingly, Facebook and Google dominate the online ad marketplace, with collective ad revenues of $34B in Q3 2017 alone. However, Amazon is positioning itself to be next in line, with a critical mass of visitors on site with clear purchase intent, and an increasing brick and mortar footprint, via their acquisition of Whole Foods, which in turn provides Amazon with additional consumer data streams.
TV habits are projected to continue to shift to on-demand platforms, particularly with OTT and CTV.
And finally, as Digital continues to overtake traditional media ecosystems, multitasking, attention-deficient Americans are now cramming 12 hours of media and tech time into 31 hours of activity within a 24 hour day.
As new content distributors like Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix race to our doorstep, the only thing getting in their way may be the companies that actually bring them there. How the repeal of net neutrality will reshape the media world is a subject that will draw close attention in 2018 and the years to follow.
Ben Johnsen is Kiosk’s VP Strategy & Planning. Interested in taking a fresh look at your own media planning for 2018? Give Kiosk a call.