The great revolt of consumers against ad clutter, slowdown, and data usage has shaken buyers, sellers and ad tech in the last year. And they promise (no, really, this time) that they “get it” now. Lest they make better digital environments and sponsored experiences for consumers, users simply will turn the ads off.  Where to start? Is this a publisher problem to solve or do we throw more technology at it? Is this a rallying cry for more native ads and content marketing? What will the IAB’s “LEAN” guidance render, if anything? Or is this just a fool’s errand? Is effective advertising really possible, at scale, without being in some way intrusive and interruptive of the media experience?

Ancestry.com has moved in recent months towards greater focus on CRM. By
understanding its user data to minimize churn and deepen relationships with
its customer base, the company is curtailing acquisition costs,
personalizing its communications with users, and charting a richer future
that is less dependent on chasing down new members.

As both consumers and clients pressure the agency model to move away from a century old media-centric model, we ask AKQA’s head of media how he sees agencies helping to build better experiences for users and a more service-oriented model for both consumer and client.

For the first fifteen years of the digital media revolution, much of the money and focus has been around optimizing media targeting and buying with ever more complex and costly layers of tech and data. But marketers, aimed less at media buying and more at customer relationships and business outcomes, are arming up with their own stacks. DMPs, content and social management tools, data warehouses and drilling arsenals, cloud platforms and more are drawing VC investment and marketer interest as the ad tech industry seems to lose its way. What happens next? Does ad tech need to consolidate and simplify in order to better serve the martech stack? Or will marketing technology ultimately just need to swallow ever more of the data driven ecosystem?

As marketers, their consultancies, their marcom and ad tech stacks increasingly take control of a more commoditized media economy, the ad agency’s very reason for being becomes murkier. Clients are looking for business outcomes, not reach and frequency. They want relationships, sales, data. What does this mean for the agency of 2021? We have already seen radical reorgs at some holding companies and the decentralization of agency trading desks. Is this the beginning of a revolution in the way clients relate to, measure and pay agencies? Is the holding company and its countless agency identities the best way to serve these new client demands…or a less siloed, unified brand…or perhaps no holding companies at all?

Newspapers and magazines collapse, TV news contracts, and the digital channels that replace them spew listicles, recanted rumors, red carpet galleries, and thousands of links to the same story. Without a media economy to support enterprise reporting, deep investigation that uncovers abuses of power, can journalism any longer serve democracy? Can we even get impartial service content that isn’t driven by sponsor interests? Are there business models to support a “Fourth Estate?” Crowdfunding? Philanthropy? Micropayments? How can the media of the future make enough digital dimes to sustain their institutional role as cultural gatekeepers or even as democracy’s watchman?

How long has the industry been assuring consumers that tracking their online behaviors, preferences, personae and compromising their privacy gives them more relevant and better advertising and better media? But has it…really? Maybe users are blocking ads because the purported value exchange of advertising is invisible at best, laughable at worst. This panel explores the possibility of data collection becoming an opportunity for media and advertisers to reset the relationship. Will the media of 2021 need to better leverage opt-in relationships where the exchange of data for content is more transparent, clearly beneficial to the consumer and under her control? As content and data diffuses into the Internet of Things, especially, won’t permission-based marketing relationships become pretty much required. Why wait to figure out how this all will work?