• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, December 22, 2022

Yep, it’s that time of year again: Time for some speculation on what 2023 might bring to the world of media, advertising and technology.

Here are my top four picks:

The ad recession will last longer than most hope. The Standard Media Index data earlier this week confirmed what most know. We’re in an ad recession, having just experienced the sixth consecutive month of declining ad spend in the U.S.

A number of ad-tech companies will be hurt. It’s been coming for a while, and a lot of companies got a reprieve during the pandemic, but stretched bank announcement balances, lack of public or strategic exits, and a dearth of follow-on investors in the industry will finally take its toll on the dozens of ad-tech companies currently fighting to stay afloat. Keep your eyes and ears open for staffing cuts, consolidations and shutdowns.

Programmatic ad-tech soup won’t be much clearer. Before the second quarter of 2023 is over, every banner-built digital ad-tech system will have appended the acronym “CTV” and term “streaming” to their platforms, preceded by the words "purpose-built” -- which, of course, none were or will be. What’s old is new again, as it always seems to be in ad tech.

Netflix will finish the year as a video ad market leader. The long-awaited debutante of the video ad industry has had her coming-out cotillion. Expectations for Netflix at this point are enormous and certainly unfair, but by the end of the year, the company will emerge as a real leader in the industry -- not by the financial scale of its business, but by the impact it has on industry standards, go-to-market and thought leadership, much of this owing to having made some great picks in the senior leadership it has installed so far in its ad business.

What else do you think we’ll see in 2023?