2. What is changing in the world of advertising?

Published: Feb. 15, 2021, 1 a.m.

It wouldn’t be absurd to think a global pandemic would hit the ad industry. But predictions of 15 or 20% decline turned out to be pessimistic: This Year Next Year, by Brian Wieser, Global President of Business Intelligence at Group M, finds that advertising will end up at declining by “only” 5.8% on an underlying basis in 2020 (excluding-U.S. political advertising). So what HAS the impact of COVID-19 been on media budgets and allocations? Is EVERYONE using digital ads, and how should platforms build better advertising products? And can we reasonably predict what will happen next?