The way advertising is today sucks and the model fundamentally doesn't work. The audience hates it; the publishers and the creators hate it; new regulation like GDPR makes it even worse; and, as publishers, we are completely losing the market.
The only ones who win are those who have added so much scale that the poor individual performances don't matter.
And worse, every time publishers try to fix this, instead of actually doing anything new, they just come up with the same old concept that is already proven not to work.
So... in this 41-page report, let's have a serious discussion about the future of advertising. In fact, let's not just discuss this, let's redefine the way we think about it, and come up with a new concept that would work for publishers.
What would a different future of advertising look like?
The advertising market is changing in several different ways
In the good old days, advertising was simple. As a publisher you offered people reach and exposure for brands ... and that was it. You didn't have to think about targeting, because you couldn't.
Well, guess what: This is not the world we live in anymore. The first change we come across is that the advertising world is no longer exposure-based. It is defined by other factors, like targeting, intents, moments, affiliations, endorsements, and many other things.