Madison and Wall: Saturday Summary

For the week ending December 9, 2023

Beginning in January 2024, most Madison and Wall research and related data published on this Substack will primarily be available to consulting or advisory clients, or otherwise as part of a paid corporate subscription.   Please reach out to brian@madisonandwall.com if you would like to discuss these services or for more information about the new offering.  

A busy week in the world of advertising data with the release of new industry forecasts from agencies, including WPP’s GroupM and Interpublic’s Magna.   As for me, I was in London at the Future of TV Advertising conference where there were many advocates optimistically highlighting the effectiveness of television advertising.   

 I likely was disappointing anyone watching by focusing more on the challenges facing the industry and the idea that “creative destruction” will inevitably lead to decline for the ad-supported TV sector, at least as it currently presents itself to marketers.   There will be components of television that can grow in the near term – connected TV, for example – but platforms focused on CTV and streaming fwill mostly be taking share of a medium that continues to decline.   The Media Leader, a publication owned by the conference’s organizers provided an excellent summary of the event on their weekly podcast.

In a separate piece I published this week, I wrote about one of the industry’s key growth drivers, the $7 billion+ estimate for spending which originates in China and winds up on Meta in the United States  and in another I wrote about how extra scrutiny on programmatic buying from advertisers alongside the building “tsunami of crap” of AI-driven publishing will probably push even greater shares of advertising budgets towards walled gardens in coming years.