What we'll be talking about in 2025

Hope everyone’s having a great holiday season. I’m not doing predictions, instead I’m going to talk about what we’re going to talk about.

Marketecture Podcast: Year-End Episode

Eric Franchi and I talk about the best and worst of 2024, and make some predictions about Google, TikTok, and more. Thanks for listening!

The 2025 Agenda

I used to do predictions, and generally found it dissatisfying. Basically you would take something that you knew was directional accurate, like “privacy regulations”, then extrapolate a bit and throw in a wild guess likely to get the reader’s attention. Then at year end, you would note that you generously gave yourself a 3.5 out of ten score. Its fun, but a little silly. Instead, I’m going to just do the directionally accurate part and talk about what I think we’ll be talking about in 2025.

Hot topics

There are certain things that we’re absolutely going to be talk about in 2025, maybe as soon as January!

Tik Tok Ban: It’s gone to the Supreme Court, and President-elect Trump has come out on the app’s side. Even if the Court does not give them a reprieve, seems like the administration will work to stop the ban in some way.

Google Ad Tech Break-up: We are expecting judgments from both the EU and the US imminently. Both may ask for a break-up, through the details are TBD. Then Google appeals, Trump gets involved, other stuff happens. Watch this space.

Google Search Case: This Spring we’ll have the remedies section of the search antitrust case where the government is asking for a Chrome spin-out. This is going to be a bonanza for lawyers and lobbyists ad all the tech giants jockey for their preferred outcomes.

Privacy / Sandbox

We’re in hurry-up-and-wait mode as Google takes its time telling the world what the future “consumer choice” option will be for Chrome cookies. Whatever they suggest will rile up a lot of people on both sides of the debate and likely start a new cycle of review, discussion, and possibly government oversight.

Google’s announcement last week that they were loosening their rules around IP addresses tells me that the company is really hurting in CTV versus both DSPs and stand-alone buying companies. I’d watch this space, especially for any counter-reaction from Apple, like an expansion of their IP-relay system.

Unless the cookie action speeds up significantly I think the PET market will remain a bit lackluster. Until advertisers really feel the pain there will be less pressure for fixes.

CTV Shake-up Post-Vizio

Walmart buying Vizio was arguably the most important advertising-related M&A of 2024. A bunch of things to watch:

• How aggressive will Walmart be in discounting the sets to gain share;

• Do they make moves to become more of a walled garden? Maybe on top of Trade Desk, or maybe not?

• Do other DSPs get the cold shoulder on data?

Also, I think we’re all anxiously awaiting any news around The Trade Desk’s OS.

Public Markets

All eyes are on AppLovin, after an astounding run-up in the stock and a lot of misunderstandings of the business model. I could imagine them buying a smaller market cap competitor like Unity, or maybe they’ll come crashing down — no one knows!

IAS and DoubleVerify seems to be an inflection point. Both stocks are languishing, and public criticism has been harsh. IAS has take-private interest. Should be interesting.

Will anyone go public this year? Probably not, but the queue would likely include MediaOcean, MNTN, and maybe VidMob? Not sure.

AI

You can’t really have a year-end list without AI. The trick as an industry observer is to ignore the one-off examples, like the recent Coke ad created with AI, and look for sustainable trends. I’m keeping an eye out for major holding company headcount changes and/or production-level usage of AI with major platforms (other than the Walled Gardens).

Eric and I have talked on the pod before about a prediction that there would be an AI-first agency with large bookings and very low headcount. I’m still waiting to see that, but I’d also just throw out into the ether that I’d like to know who is going to be the “Gary V of AI”, if you get my drift.

Attribution and reporting is another area where perhaps we’l see some AI-related breakthroughs. There are cool companies in the pre-AI space, but it seems like an area where we could see some innovation.

Retail / Commerce Media

The easy view of the retail / commerce media space is there’s too much fragmentation. If that’s the case we would look for either a) some retailers giving up; b) generally a lot of noise about how it “might not be worth the hassle”; and c) aggregation platers across retailers.

Did I miss anything? What are you watching for?