Some big media and ad questions as 2020 mercifully nears its end

Does anyone know anything?

Hi everyone

You are receiving this newsletter because a)as a former journalist, I’m legally obligated to start a newsletter, b)I’m trying to shake people down for business, and c)I’d like to start a dialogue and share some of what I’m thinking about the media and ads business as we edge closer to the end of the 2020 hellstorm.

First off, let me say, I really do hope you are well. I haven’t seen a human since CES. But I’ve been very lucky this year, all things considered. Since I went out on my own two years ago and started Shields Strategic Consulting, I’ve been fortunate to work with a tremendous range of clients, from helping CMOs with their social media output and speeches to helping ad tech startups figure out their messaging - to helping loads of agencies and brands and media companies and consultancies martech firms map out their content strategies and become true thought leaders (or leading thought leaders, if you will).

I even got to host my own podcast - Next In Marketing - with my great partners at Appsflyer.

Consulting has allowed for me to still maintain a cross-industry point of view, similarly to when I was a journalist - but at the same time, I’ve been able to get inside companies and develop a greater understanding of how things really work in this industry, which has been awesome. Thankfully, even during this volatile pandemic, I’ve still been able to help companies figure out their messaging on the fly, since the new normal change about five times. In a way, having a sound content strategy may be more important than ever.

(And if you need help on this front, or know someone who does, please reach out: mike@shieldsstrategic.com).

Now, onto the big questions:

1) Is the ad industry ever really going to figure out where it belongs in video games?

You’ve all read or lived the COVID-19 explosion in video game playing. Or maybe you’ve tried to buy a PlayStation 5 this holiday and contemplated murder.

Regardless, this mostly-non-ad-supported medium is only sucking up more of our time while dramatically resetting our expectations for how entertainment should work. Simulmedia has kicked off an interesting experiment with EA focused on inserting TV-like ads into live games. But for the most part, both the gaming and ad industries have moved far too slowly here - something I wrote about at length a few months ago. It’s time to get moving, or it may never happen.

2) Are you officially worried about sports like I am?

This question goes hand in hand with gaming. If anything was supposed to captivate us all during this year of quarantines, it was live sports, which came back on TV this summer after months of a completely blank calendar. For a number of reasons, live sports ratings have been worrisome.

It’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions during this extremely odd year, but if I’m a sports league, broadcaster or brand that lives and dies by big sports audiences, I’m concerned. Focus group of one, but I cannot pay my three sons (ages 7, 7 and 11) to watch sports with me. Weekend afternoons, if they’re not out playing with friends, are for video games, not watching football. They are completely tuned into every seismic seasonal change in Fortnite, but have no idea who’s playing on Monday Night Football in a given week.

Of course, this could all change when they get older. But I’m worried that given how participatory and social gaming and other media are for this generation - sitting on your couch for hours at a time passively watching games interrupted by tons of ads may never appeal to them. The sports fan experience is crying out for reinvention, as laid out in this great Sportico piece. We’ll see how fast these conservative leagues move.

3) Is anything really going to happen with regulation and anti -trust battles?

In his first 100 days, President-Elect Joe Biden has pledged to ramp up testing for the coronavirus, tackle the flailing economy, and of course take on cookies and retargeting.

Ok so maybe the last part isn’t accurate. However, we all - myself included - like to talk as though ‘looming regulation’ threatens to change digital advertising forever. Yes, we have GDPR and yes there are new laws in California addressing how ad data can be used, but has anything really changed? Is your experience on the open web just lovely?

Not so long ago, both sides of the aisle had taken up the issue of digital privacy as a populist, anti-big tech sentiment took hold. But that was a global pandemic ago. Meanwhile, as Allison Schiff at AdExchanger wrote recently - it matters much more what tech titans like Google and Apple do than the Feds when it comes to real change in digital advertising.

4)Is digital targeting about to get much worse - or much better?

There are seemingly two schools of thought in the ad tech/martech world right now: as Google eliminates cookies and Apple limits ad data on its phones, brands are either going to just swap out cookie with people’s email addresses or cell phone numbers, and that will work great, or brands are going to have to rely on very broad, probabilistic/educated guess-driven data sets to market online - and give up “one to one” forever. It seems to me that both theories can’t be right.

5)Is 2021 finally the year of AR and VR?

Maybe? I don’t know. People seem to know what the Oculus is, which is a start.

Ok, that’s it from me. I’m going to continue to experiment in this space - so you’ll hear from me again shortly. We’ll see what if anything works. In the meantime, stay safe, subscribe if. you want to, and share with a friend if you think they’ll be interested.