Sorrell sees digital acceleration boosting mid-funnel work

Continued digital growth and the advent of new technologies is changing the balance of power within the industry, said Sir Martin Sorrell on the first day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. 

Why it matters

The analysis of the chairman of S4 Capital is broadly divided into two strands – geographical and technological – which neatly encapsulate much of the change the industry faces over the next few years. Further digital growth, driven in part by new tech – he sees digital’s share of the global media market growing another 10 percentage points to 75% by 2025 – and shifting economic power have multiple implications for global businesses and their marketing strategies.

The metaverse isn’t dead

Sorrell claims to be seeing “very significant developments” in the metaverse and hailed Apple’s recent moves in this field. He pointed to several areas in particular: 

• healthcare
• training
• sports 
• entertainment 
• music
• work from home 

AI will impact media agencies
Addressing the current hot topic, Sorrell highlighted five areas where AI is having an impact: 

• Copywriting: “We’ve already seen a reduction in the times taken to produce creative work – from say two weeks, three weeks, down to literally hours.” 

• Hyper-personalisation at scale: “For a Netflix series, we might produce one and a half million creative assets in the old world; in the new world with AI and AGI it might be multiples of that.”

• Media planning and buying: Digital platforms are already developing platforms that enable SMBs to deal with them directly. “Why trust a 25-year-old media buyer or planner when you can trust an algorithm?” 

• AI as supertool: It is helping improve both S4’s own processes and the processes of clients. 

• Knowledge: AI “horizontalises” knowledge across organisations and empowers individuals.

Key quote

“We always talk about top-of-the-funnel, brand-driven communication. Unfortunately, this type of environment is going to put more and more emphasis on mid-funnel or lower-funnel work, on activation and performance, on the areas where we’ve seen very significant growth in the last year or so around the retail walled gardens” – Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman and CEO, S4C.