This week I pour one out for a legacy rag. I dig into WPP’s disappointing quarter. Oh and I’m moving this newsletter to Mondays!



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The Dead Cat Bounce





The most insightful take I’ve seen is the below tweet by Ari Paparo.







A lot of ink has been spilled on the drop in CPG spend, most notably Unilever’s announcement that they’re dropping media spend by 30% this year. P&G also announced cuts but I’ve already explained why I think that was bullshit PR-speak. WPP’s stance is that this has been caused by zero based budgeting (from activist investors) and short term thinking and that CPGs will up their spend once the cuts in marketing start affecting sales.



I’m in Ari’s camp. This isn’t a temporary disturbance in the force caused by new budgeting methods. If anything the market is just starting to see what’s going to be a much larger shift. Stratechery has a great article about TV’s dead cat bounce. The gist is that TV may seem strong now that some brands are moving digital budgets back to linear but if you simply look at TV’s time spent watching by various age groups you realize the future is bleak. Which is what made the below slide so shocking to me. In this massive list of micro and macro trends affecting the ad industry, you don’t see a single mention of linear TV shifts. It’s almost like they don’t see it coming… ( this week’s BFD )









Did Jason Kint Mention “Duopoly” This Week?





Six times . Plus he teamed up with another one of my foes to make some sort of ad tech Smithers and Burns duo.





Current streak: 13 weeks







Other Articles





“Rather than investing in DoubleVerify to sell it later or to combine it with an existing and potentially complementary asset in its portfolio, Gattinella said DoubleVerify is the strategic asset in this case”

When I talked about pivoting to video for the wrong reasons. This is the kind of company I had in mind. Mic sounds like the antithesis of what a good publisher should strive for and care about. A VC funded content farm that spent more time worrying about getting the most eyeballs than making the best product. You know what they say- if you can’t be a good example then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.

My next two podcast episodes are gonna focus on blockchain so maybe now is a good time to brush up on it. Things to ponder… is it a real move forward or just snakeoil? What parts of it make the most sense in advertising? Where will it have challenges in the RTB space? Why do we call them fingers if they don’t fing?





I could wax on and on about how this makes me feel but co-founder Norman Mailer said it much better:





“There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.”

r.i.p.





Quick Hits





Shameless Self Promotion

No podcast this week. My next episode will air 8/31.



Until then you should really check out a little side project of mine the adops podcast archive. When I’m done with it will house all of the original adops podcast (dan layfield’s) episodes, as well as each, happens in adops podcast. For now, check out one of Dan’s first ten episode and revel in how much our industry has changed.







Thanks for reading and have a great week! Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you.

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