VIA BEETCAM — The pandemic could be good <\/em>for already-powerful tech platforms with ambitions on further solidifying their power in advertising sales.<\/p>\n

That is the view of one of the world’s leading ad agency leaders, who has long wrestled against the influence exerted by tech giants.<\/p>\n

In this interview with Beet.TV, Sir Martin Sorrell says Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba and Tik Tok “are going to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis … with huge advantages in terms of data<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

For example, Sorrell says, Amazon, during the pandemic, is accumulating consumer data to make targeting more effective.<\/p>\n

“The targeting and the performance of these media are, I think, becoming more and more effective in the course of this recession<\/strong>,” he says. “That’s another permanent effect.”<\/p>\n

Forced in to publishers’ arms<\/h2>\n

Sorrell adds that pressure on two classes of media-ecosystem companies will reduce available options for advertisers…<\/p>\n

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• “Google have said<\/a>, despite the COVD crisis, they’re not contemplating delaying the nixing of third party cookies,” he says. “That means a number of publishers are going to go to the wall<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
• “A number of companies in the ad-tech ecosystem are (also) going to go to the wall<\/strong>. Maybe that’s not a bad thing … If that cleans out the system, makes it more effective, that’s no bad thing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  “As a result, clients, instead of being able to rely on their data sources for third-party cookies, it’d be pushed back and forced back to those six platforms in a more sophisticated way<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

  A recent episode of eMarketer’s Behind The Numbers podcast<\/a> also discusses how COVID-19 will change the flow of ad dollars to Facebook and Google.<\/p>\n