The Advertising Apocalypse That Never Was

Six months ago, nearly every major news outlet had at least one article predicting the end of a long-running boom in digital publishing. The common-sense logic from business writers publishing articles for money was that fears of recession, or even total global collapse, might (and often ‘is’) forcing big-brand advertisers to abandon advertising altogether. The result has been a confused mess for publishers everywhere and the investors that support them.

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3 Comments

California is poised to enact legislation that basically forces Google to fund a subsidy to local newsrooms that have been dependent on Google for so long. Interesting that those same newsrooms fired their ad sales staff once they realised that Google did all the work. Now they complain that Google keeps most of the money.

Is the failure of so many digital publishers down to management decisions then? .

Love the reporter as a clown! Also the comment that many of those publishers scored an “own goal”.

In several articles about BuzzFeed News, over-hiring, over-spending and Managment enthusiasm for AI generated content were emphasised as causes for its demise.

If these numbers are right, and adspend is really on the rise (rather than the predicted fall), then there is definitely an anomaly in the reporting. I also see the correlation between what was reported and what investors believe (at least superficially).

Interesting take aways.