Everything In Its Right Place When we started this newsletter at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, I didn’t think I would still be writing them in Q4. At the time, it seemed unlikely that this would last longer than a couple of months. However, their purpose then, and now, is the ...continue reading
Prime, Election Season From any vantage point, October has a lot going on. This is especially true when talking Ad Spend. That is not a value statement; it’s just an objective fact. The run-up to the US presidential election, Amazon Prime Day, and the start of Q4 will be a force multiplier. It is going ...continue reading
September to Remember If you only cared about Digital Ad Spend, and not (gesturing broadly at everything) anything else, well, this has been an amazing end to the summer and Q3. At this point, Ad Spend is outperforming our expectations. In my last newsletter, we talked about getting past flat. Well, we got past it ...continue reading
Getting Past Flat We took a longer than normal break between newsletters. With the summer quickly coming to an end and folks away on holiday, it felt like a good time to step away from industry analysis. I thought by virtue of living in some kind of time soup this summer would feel longer than ...continue reading
The Blue Jean Committee By design, this newsletter is positive. With so much uncertainty and challenging circumstances, I think it’s important to focus on the good out there. And while there is plenty of it, there is a limit to my positivity. And its video conferencing. It is an energy vampire. I don’t care if you ...continue reading
This is Today. Today is Yesterday. And Tomorrow is also Today. It’s official. Our new normal is no longer new. It’s just normal. If you have an internet connection, or cable television, you have heard those words more in the past few months than your own name. “The New Normal” will be the Time Magazine ...continue reading
Keep on Keeping On Momentum is important. You don’t realise how important it is until you lose it. In this business, we like to talk about momentum using expressions like “tailwinds”, “flywheel effects”, and the crown jewel of them all – “growth”. In a world where flat felt like progress, forward movement feels like a ...continue reading
A Big Change Since we started this newsletter, our friend, Tom Hanks, has been an unofficial mascot of our COVID-19 analysis. His diagnosis represented a dividing line of sorts between the pre and post-pandemic world. His recovery was our recovery. He was the Woody to our Andy. The Turner to our Hooch. The Jenny to ...continue reading
Al Fresco Nation For the past couple of years, my running has been on a slow and steady decline. I can blame it on travel, work, and any number of distractions, but the truth is I just wasn’t able to keep a consistent routine. There wasn’t really anything materially different other than my motivation had ...continue reading
100 Days, 100 Nights There are a lot of good headlines coming out of the trades. Advertising is expected to recover and grow in 2021. Programmatic, in particular, is fighting its way back to pre-COVID levels. We are settled into our new routines. In some respects, it feels harder to imagine what it was like ...continue reading
Viva Las Vegas? It’s the beginning of June, and Ad Spend continues to recover. Even the most hard-hit Ad categories, like Travel, have started to gain momentum. All verticals are up since April 1st, and green shoots are sprouting across the ecosystem. We still have a ways to go, but collectively things are getting better. ...continue reading
Due to current events, and acts of injustice, it feels inappropriate to share a newsletter this week. Instead, I am including a list of resources that feel relevant and important. You won’t be wrong to start anywhere on this list, but I found Ta-Nehesi Coates We Were Eight Years in Power to be the most ...continue reading