Forget Facebook and Google: The ad world thinks this tech giant is ‘terrifying’

The mad men and women of the ad industry have plenty of reasons to toss and turn at night. Money is increasingly trickling from television commercials to digital media — a market that Facebook and Google currently have in a duopolistic chokehold. Inter-agency competition is at a fever pitch. Unconventional upstarts are eating their lunch. If Don Draper were around today, there’s a good chance he’d work at Facebook. But it’s not internet advertising giants that keep the industry’s top chief up at night. Nor is it his three-month-old daughter. It’s…Amazon?

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Newspaper’s print advertising revenues decline continues

The erosion in print ad sales kicked off at the beginning of 2016 and did not let up. In the fourth quarter alone, print sales dropped 20 per cent at the New York Times and at McClatchy, operator of 29 US daily papers. Gannett, owner of USA Today, reported a 15 per cent fall in the US and a 14 per cent decline at Newsquest, its UK chain. News Corp said the fall in print dragged total ad revenue down 29 per cent at News UK (publisher of The Sun and The Times), 20 per cent at Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones and 12 per cent at its Australian papers. The Financial Times and Tronc, the owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, have also been hit.

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Brexit Will Weaken UK Ad Spend, Zenith Says

Brexit will further weaken a slowdown in UK adspend in the coming years, Zenith has forecasted, with advertising growth set to halve to 5% this year. The Publicis Groupe media agency’s Advertising Expenditure Forecasts says UK adspend will be down on 2015’s 9.2%. Last year Zenith had predicted UK growth of 9.7%.

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TV groups watch out for EU commercial break

At the start of 2016, UK television broadcasters were on a roll. Spending on TV advertising had surged more than 7 per cent to £5.3bn in 2015. ITV, the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster, was looking forward to another strong year — thanks in part to sporting events including the European football championships. But, so far, the TV ad market in 2016 is flat, or just marginally stronger than at the same point last year, according to media agencies. Some industry analysts even believe TV ad spending could fall this year — for the first time since the global financial crisis in 2009.

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