Ad Tech’s Me-Too Problem

Looking at investment banker Terry Kawaja’s famous landscape slide of advertising technology leaves many shaking their heads. Who are all these companies? What value to they provide that the dozens of other logos do not? The sensible reaction is to decry the “complexity” of advertising technology. (Digiday certainly has.) And yet, according to Kawaja himself, there’s a larger, if related problem: duplication. The fact of the matter is, many of these companies aren’t providing something all that special from the others. They persist because of the surplus of venture capital flowing into advertising technology. Kawaja spoke to this in his presentation at Ad:Tech yesterday.

Read a rundown of Kawaja’s presentation on AllVoices. Follow Kawaja on Twitter @tkawaja.