A year of change within advertising.

Advertising and media are standing at a crossroads, faced with the need for transformation.

There are three key areas where I see change taking place this year, some are inevitable, and some of these our industry is in desperate need of.

The first is a better consumer experience through advertising.

Yes, advertising may work, but at what cost?

Does it genuinely leave a positive impact on the people who witness it?

Once upon a time, advertising was a part of the culture, brand jingles were sung on playgrounds and people genuinely paid attention to the Television ad breaks.

Now bombardments are coming in from every direction, the consumer tries to blank them out at best, and at worst, actively pays or uses tech to block adverts.

A world where consumers are watching their TV and are served the same ad 12 times in quick succession, or where you’re trying to read an article, but the page is so slow due to numerous ads and pop-ups, is not one we want to create through advertising.

We’ve gone from creating art to creating interruptions.

While business results may still be achieved, we need to stop and think if the experience can be better.

The internet wasn’t built for us to throw ads on every page, feed, and video. The internet should be a place that connects, educates, and entertains.

The model is broken, we need to enhance a user’s experience through advertising, not hinder it.

The second is AI, an inevitable change taking place across industries that will change the way we work forever.

While it may not be until 2025 that we’re all using AI as part of our day-to-day work, adoption will be quick once the user cases reveal themselves, and this year I think we’ll start to see them.

Automation, Real-time measurement across touchpoints, and Enhanced Creatives are just a few of the user cases being worked on by startups in real-time.??

ChatGPT took the world by storm, I don’t think we’re too far away from seeing tools being introduced that leave just as much of an impact, with more real-world user cases for businesses.

Last and no means least, we need to clean up our industry.

As recent studies have shown, billions are being wasted in programmatic media, but this isn’t the only culprit.

Legacy deals, corporate inefficiencies, and black box setups across the media supply chain are leading to ineffective distribution of advertisers' budgets.

This isn’t a new problem but is one which needs to change if we can really call ourselves a forward-thinking industry, at the forefront of innovation.

Billions of dollars in wastage each year is simply not acceptable.

It's time for a new model - transparency, efficiency, and open networks for optimal distribution across high-quality inventory.

This only happens when advertisers ask more questions, demand more transparency, and take back control of their media spend.

Advertising as an industry, has been around since the 1950s when the first TV ad was released in the UK.

There’s been quite an evolution since then, with new methods, channels, and tools used to keep brands at the forefront of what’s possible.

But the playing field we now find ourselves in is very different from the pre-digital era. Where consumers used to be exposed to a handful of brands and adverts through TV, Radio, and Print, there are now thousands of brands in each industry vying for the consumer's attention.

Advertising used to work simply because it could gather enough attention.

Now the need to leverage creativity and make difficult strategic choices about how to allocate time and money has never been greater.??