Newsletter
For 15 years, much of adtech sold a lie the industry was happy to buy: infinite reach without sacrificing quality. The pitch survived only because quality media owners legitimised with their presence pipes full of Made for Advertising (MFA) inventory and the long tail of low-quality content. Generative AI has
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Programmatic made real the delusion of infinity. Infinite reach. Infinite inventory. Infinite data. What wasn't infinite was quality. It remained the differentiator for premium media owners, even as everything else became commoditised. With generative AI, even quality could become abundant. When quality becomes abundant, it becomes cheap and
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There is a critical difference between predicting the future and simply observing the present, yet current industry forecasts often confuse the two. Reading through the latest round of 2026 industry forecasts, there is far too much of the latter: concepts that have been written on the wall for years, sold
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Over the past two years, AI has moved from experimental to operational across media organisations. Newsrooms are using it for research and drafting, product teams for personalisation, commercial teams for audience insights. The technology works, adoption is real, and early wins are visible. Yet something curious is happening: whilst individual
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AI agents and so-called “super signal aggregators” are being framed as the saviors of premium publishers and advertisers who prioritize high-quality media. But these technologies could perpetuate programmatic’s worst practices and push premium media brands into a Commoditization 2.0 era. Commoditization 1.0 occurred when quality media brands
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When a major brand's ad budgets end up funding terrorist propaganda or child exploitation, the industry's response is predictably complex: more AI, more algorithms, more “solutions”. But what if the answer has been hiding in plain sight for years? Two decades of added complexity have done
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Because DSPs manage programmatic ad spend, they can be seen as gatekeepers wielding influence over industry standards. DSPs select inventory to bid on, interpret SSP signals and prioritize bids based on historical performance and preferences. However, advertisers, agencies, media owners and technology providers also influence the rapidly evolving programmatic ecosystem.
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That time of the year again, when I spend the first week of January reflecting and getting ready for the new year after making the time between Christmas and New Year just for family and friends. As usual, rather than predicting the future, I'd like to offer some
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The regular drip of reports by watchdogs like Adalytics is normally followed by widespread – more or less genuine – outrage. This pattern reveals two facts about the digital advertising industry. One: The road to (real) accountability is still long and winding. Two: The way most of the industry is tackling the
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The digital advertising industry faces conflicting interests, leading to polarised perspectives on various topics, which slow down its progress and transformation. Media alliances and curated marketplaces are not an exception, both emerging as two of the most promising trends in the aftermath of the near-miss disappearance (for now) of the
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Without a real and engaged audience, a media company would generate no revenue. In the first-party web, where the primary client of a premium media company is its audience, a content strategy plays a crucial role in media monetisation and supports the overarching goal of the company. Beyond Traffic: The
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I call that rabbit hole many media owners find themselves in, the “perpetual cycle of emergency”. It begins with short-term decisions, or a complete lack of them, at key strategic moments in time. It leaves the media brand weaker. It makes them more vulnerable to the consequences of whatever is