Social platforms promised reach. What they delivered was dependence, collapse and lost audiences. Media owners, advertisers and agencies now face the same trap with AI.
More Omar Oakes articles
What does it say about confidence in our industry that we still have to give marketers guidance about how to run fair pitch processes?
TV has earned trust because its numbers are verified, scrutinised and benchmarked. Social media? Not so much. Google needs to decide where YouTube stands.
WPP’s new CEO has an extraordinary CV. But Rose’s appointment signals a deeper crisis in advertising: the people running it no longer believe it’s a creative business.
We ban smartphones from our kids, but design media plans that depend on them. If mobile screen time has now overtaken TV, isn’t it finally time to do something about this contradiction?
If the job of running an agency holding company has become performative, constrained and algorithmic, why pretend it requires a human?
This is why human-led content needs a compass more than ever: values can’t be faked. You can’t prompt your way to perspective.
The ad industry keeps obsessing over whales, but the krill are paying the bills. It’s time someone built an agency for the rest.
Celebrity journalism has often blurred the line between PR and reality — but the Bernard Bale story reveals just how far you can go when no-one asks questions.
Meta says yes. A US regulator says: how convenient. But, whether it serves his interest or not, does Mark Zuckerberg have a point?