‘That’s not a great story’: Brian Wieser is muted on TV market

Global media spend is on the rise, but which platforms and channels are truly benefiting?

Brian Weiser, founder and principal of Madison and Wall, discusses the latest trends in advertising, including cross-border trade, whose impact has not been as drastic as first predicted — at least for now.

He argues: “As the saying goes, the distinction between being wrong and being early is often indistinguishable.”

Speaking to consultant Justin Lebbon in Cannes, Wieser shares his frank outlook on the TV market: “If you’ve got an industry or sector growing by 0% or 1% in a broader industry growing by 8% or 9%, that’s not a great story.”

For him, TV growth seen in Europe is not due to marketers changing their view of the medium, but rather a recovery from the pandemic.

But it’s not an effectiveness issue. If effectiveness is the only factor that drives spend, Wieser stresses, direct mail and radio would see much higher investment.

Watch the full interview

Meanwhile, the much-discussed shift of search spend away from Google has been greatly exaggerated. According to Wieser, the majority of this spend comes from small businesses, which will continue to spend in Google for now, regardless of whether other search engines are growing.

“It only shifts when there’s a sufficiently large alternative,” he explains. “We’re nowhere close that yet.

“Even if they [competitors] had 10% of all query volumes, they don’t have proper sales and proper distribution and proper products developed — that takes more than 12 months.”