Businesses label Google and Facebook as among biggest threats to advertising
More than a quarter of advertising industry leaders think tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon are among the biggest long-term threats to the sector.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic poses the most harm to the industry, according to a survey by LiveRamp and YouGov, as over a third of leaders said they were concerned about the economic effects of lockdown.
Other concerns included Brexit and the shifting regulatory landscape in the UK.
The dominance of the likes of Google and Facebook in the advertising market is often referred to as a so-called walled garden — meaning that once a user’s data is collected, those companies then control that data needed for personalised advertising across the internet.
“For us, the problem is our inability to collect revenue, according to the size and quality of our audience,” said Nick Hewat, commercial director at Guardian News and Media.
“It isn’t just coronavirus that has done that — that has been an issue for years. And it’s just become more concentrated during the last few months.”
More than a third of senior British marketing leaders think greater transparency in the decisions made by world’s largest tech giants around online advertising on their platforms would improve the advertising industry.
Meanwhile 33 per cent also think the arbiters of so-called walled gardens agreeing to a list of principles that would make the industry more fair.
Vihan Sharma, Liveramp’s European managing director, said: “As we face big structural changes in the shape of tightened regulation and restrictions on third-party cookies and device-based IDs, we must use this as an opportunity to innovate the online advertising ecosystem, embracing the tools that will enable data collaboration and increase addressability and reach.”