The end of buying media, the rise of buying audiences

Joe Mandese

Attempts (by Google and others) to evolve media planning and buying into an open trading system (in which media buyers become “portfolio managers of their clients’ marketing budgets”) have largely failed in traditional, offline media, mainly because major media outlets – especially big television networks – do not want to make their advertising inventory available on exchanges and open trading systems.

The end of buying media, the rise of buying audiences

Joe Mandese

When it comes to industrial neighbourhoods, Madison Avenue has always envied Wall Street's. For three decades now, agencies have claimed that they bring the same science and sophistication to the planning and buying of media time and space that the financial industry brings to researching and investing in equities.

Given how the financial industry has performed of late, I am not sure that the ad industry should be trumpeting that analogy, but I'm seeing big agencies making claims that they are morphing into the equivalent of Wall Street's...

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