Google and Meta’s share of digital ad spend in the US will dip below 50% next year, and it could be downhill from there for the duopoly.

According to EMarketer’s forecast, 50.5% of US online ad spend will accrue to the duopoly this year, but that figure will drop to 48.7% in 2023 and 47.7% in 2024.

EMarketer’s numbers could be wildly off, of course. Or they could correctly predict a temporary blip in the performance of the duopoly that is of no real significance. But they could also portend the beginning of the end of Google and Meta’s near-total supremacy within digital advertising – and that’s a lot more interesting.

Eric Seufert has written insightfully about how the dynamics of online advertising, and he thinks new privacy norms are to blame.

Contrary to popular opinion, says Seufert, the first-party data that Facebook collects from its users (likes, comments, etc) are nowhere near as valuable to its ads business as the conversion data that showed which users bought something after viewing an ad. And now that various privacy initiatives (like Apple’s ATT protocol) are making it harder to collect and share this conversation data, platforms like Facebook have lost their edge. 

With the giants of internet advertising hobbled, organisations with lots of first-party customer data (like retailers) have spied an opening to create their own rival ad networks, and thanks to the fat margins of online advertising, many of them are grabbing that opportunity with both hands.

There are various things that Meta and Google can do to overcome the challenges presented by the new privacy rules, like bringing more transactions within their own platforms, but it's starting to feel like the golden age of the duopoly is gone.

Campaign of the Week /

Window Shopping

Ikea turned people’s homes into living catalogues to promote a new store opening in Toronto, Canada.

The furniture retailer filled participants’ homes with its products and then fitted signs around their windows that made it look like they were living inside an Ikea catalogue.

Creative agency Rethink came up with the eye-catching stunt to announce Ikea’s arrival in downtown Toronto. Read our full analysis here. Contagious.

Partner Post /

Catch up on the best of Cannes with PHD's podcast

With so much to take in from Cannes, it’s hard to know where to start.

So, catch up on the key talking points by listening to PHD’s Cannes Daily podcast.

Published as a four-part takeover of our Media Weekly series, each episode is packed with insights and takeaways from the festival.

Listen now to hear agency and industry experts reflect on the week’s key themes and get exclusive insights from brand marketers explaining how to build better connections with consumers.

Tune in at PHD Sounds, the home of all PHD's audio content. PHD Sounds.

Remember this /

CEPs appeal

The more category entry points a consumer associates with a brand, the less likely they are to buy from a competitor. Within the US insurance sector specifically, each additional entry point assimilated by a customer reduces the likelihood of them switching brands by 5%, according to a new study.

The research was carried out on behalf of LinkedIn’s B2B Institute by Jenni Romaniuk, a professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. Marketing Week has written a summary of the paper, here. Marketing Week.

Attend this /

Contagious Live: Cannes Edition

Get a no-nonsense breakdown of the big trends from Cannes at Contagious Live in London on 13 July.

Whether you’re a planner with ‘thoughts’ on this year’s winners, a creative with designs on next year’s festival or a client wondering what the hell just happened, we'll give you some much-needed perspective on adland’s annual state-of-the-nation event.

Tickets cost just £35. Find out more and secure your place here. Contagious.

Watch this /

Reddit's first TV campaign

Reddit’s first TV campaign in the US invites weirdos to use the website to find like-minded people.

R/GA created the ad, which comprises three humorous skits highlighting the off-kilter hobbies and habits that Reddit communities are built around. The TV spot is being supported by outdoor ads around New York that juxtapose images that represent contrasting Reddit communities.

Find Your People is Reddit’s first US TV campaign, although the company made an impact with its 2021 Super Bowl ad – a glitchy, five-second spot that ran in regional markets. YouTube.

Listen to this /

Ad effectiveness triple jeopardy

The Uncensored CMO podcast has interviewed Karen Nelson-Field, Peter Field and Orlando Wood about their Cannes Lions talk on the triple-headed threat facing advertising effectiveness.

If you’re not already familiar with the work of these three marketing researchers, this is a good introduction, and it’s only 25 minutes long.

Field talks about how budgets for long-term brand building are being syphoned into short-term activations, while Nelson-Field discusses her research into attention (and how virtually no one is measuring it correctly), and Wood expounds on his theory about a collective bout of left-brained thinking that's diminishing the power of adverts. Uncensored CMO.

Check this /

Contagious' prediction performance review

Every year we predict (see here and here) what campaigns we think will win a Gold Lion or better at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and to keep ourselves honest, we publish our results.

Out of the 16 campaigns that we tipped to win big this year, five won Grands Prix, three won Gold and one won a Titanium Lion. Which gives our list a 56% hit rate. To see every Grand Prix-winning campaign from Cannes this year, click here. Contagious.