Many brands think of themselves as permanent. In fact, the lives of great brands can be quite fleeting, particularly if they don’t fully embrace digital media.
Circuit City, Kodak and Blockbuster all appeared very robust as recently as the 1990s. But now lead a zombie-like existence, not quite dead but not quite alive either, according to Peter Horan, president of Answers Media Group and former About.com CEO.
“I really love disaster movies,” Horan said. “I love ‘Independence Day.’ I watch it every time it is on TV. I tear up at the end of ‘Armageddon,’ when Bruce Willis put Ben Affleck into the chute to go back up into the space ship. The core premise of a good disaster movie is that you wake up every morning going on with your regular life: getting your car washed, buying groceries. And unbeknownst to you, this big-ass meteor is flying through space and is about to blow the earth into a hundred million pieces. And that is in fact, what business in the United States has been like for the last 20 years.”
More in Marketing
The Rundown: How brands can cut programmatic wastage
The latest edition of the ANA’s programmatic transparency report claims $22 billion can be saved by drastically cutting the ad tech bloat.
Digiday+ Research: Agency clients favor programmatic over direct-sold ads, as confidence — and spending — fall in online display
Agency clients still see programmatic as an important part of their marketing budgets. But, overall, the uncertainty around programmatic could be causing them to lose confidence in online display ads as a marketing channel, and, as a result, agency clients are investing less in online display.
How AI regulation differs in the U.S. and EU
There’s a global AI race and different regulations in different countries might be slowing down – or speeding up – innovation. Here is a breakout of how regulations are being shaped on both sides of the Atlantic.