Madison & Wall 2023 In Review: Most Popular Posts of the Year
2023 turned out to be a good year – not only for the advertising industry (which shouldn’t be surprising to those who have been following my perspectives from when I was at GroupM or Pivotal Research) – but also for Madison & Wall.
Beyond a greater number of consulting and advisory engagements than I might have expected from a standing start at the beginning of 2023, I was really pleased with how this publication turned out, too With more than 100 pieces of research or commentary published, thousands of new subscribers and countless pieces of press coverage, I offer my thanks to everyone who has been reading and reacting to it!
As I’ve been indicating over the past few months, 2024 will bring changes to the publication as Madison & Wall’s commercial model evolves. Beginning in the new year, access to this work will be primarily for advisory and consulting clients as well as to corporate subscribers to a stand-alone research product.
If you or your firm has already secured access for 2024, you should soon receive an introductory email with further information. If you work for a firm who will have access but have historically used a personal email address to access Substack, please contact me at brian@madisonandwall.com and I will send you additional details.
If you or your firm has not secured access but would like to able to do so, I’d love to have you aboard. Please reach out and I can provide further information.
Going forward, I will still distribute a limited “free” offering including limited summaries of some of the paid product along with other specially commissioned work. Although it won’t be the same as the paid product, I hope those receiving the free one will still find value in it.
Meanwhile, to end the year I thought it would be useful to highlight 2023’s most popular posts.
Advertising Forecasts
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/new-us-ad-forecast-strong-advertising
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/360-billion-us-ad-industry-to-grow
Perhaps it’s unsurprising, but two of the most popular posts of the year were the two forecasts of the US advertising industry I published, with detailed explanations for growth (or decline expectations) and data across dozens of types of media on a quarterly basis through 2028. Although the more recent forecast from November provides current estimates for growth, most of the underlying narratives for each medium captured in more detail in the August forecast remain firmly in place.
Large Advertiser CEO and CFO Commentary
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/top-100-marketer-ceo-and-cfo-3q23
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/top-100-marketer-ceo-and-cfo-2q23
Two other very popular reports I published this year were summaries of comments provided by CEOs and CFOs of large marketers during their quarterly earnings calls. These comments will have certain biases (i.e. they favor CPG companies for whom advertising is proportionately more important, and comments company executives make about themselves will rarely be critical) but they are instructive in terms of highlighting what many marketing-related issues executives at the top of these companies tend to think about.
Meta Analysis
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/metas-3q23-21-cc-ad-growth-led-by
Some individual company analyses during earnings seasons “pop,” and this one about Meta’s most recent results certainly did. Of course, it’s not just a review of the quarter as much as a piece that highlights two of the biggest trends driving digital advertising right now, including growth in spending from Chinese manufacturers (a topic I’ve been exploring for a decade) and AI-driven ad products such as Advantage+, two trends that have been particularly important supports of growth for the industry in 2023.
“Death of TV” and Opportunities For Growth
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/total-us-tv-incl-streamingctv-ad
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/the-death-of-tv-advertising-a-brief
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/an-interview-with-nbcuniversals-krishan
TV (including CTV) advertising is facing permanent secular decline as things currently stand, and I’ve provided a wide range of analysis in support of that view over the course of the year. At the same time, I think there are pathways to growth for the industry’s companies to consider. Three particularly popular pieces I published included a forecast of declining ad impressions, a history of claims of the “death of TV” (and why this time actually is different) and an interview with Krishan Bhatia who led a wide range of potentially impactful industry initiatives during his time at NBCU, which he left later in the year.
Agency Trends
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/ipg-wpp-news-on-kinesso-nexus-illustrate
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/dentsus-6-3q23-decline-and-an-exploration
Two agency-focused pieces stood out in terms of readership relative to all of the others I produced, one of which related to the reorganization of what might have been called programmatic business units at large agency holding companies and the other related to diverging trends in growth from different types of agencies during 2023.
Digital Publishing Challenges
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/anas-programmatic-study-the-tsunami
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/publishing-is-the-best-way-to-make
TV isn’t the only medium poised to experience ongoing decline. Unfortunately, digital publishing-related advertising is poorly positioned for many reasons which I explain in these posts. For better and worse, walled gardens will collectively continue to gain share of the total advertising market.
That’s all for now. I look forward to staying in touch during 2024. If you will be at CES, please reach out! I wish you all a happy new year.