Status: Occurring
Prediction: The End of White Space As We Know It
“We are powerless. Numerous trends are pointing towards continued ad-ification of the world:
- No politician wants to raise taxes. As municipal desperation for non-tax funds grows, so will advertising.
- The sheer abundance of products and communication channels will continue to fuel the competition for our attention.
- Availability of consumer data and technology that makes targeting customers increasingly more effective.
- Consumers are becoming more tolerant of ad infringements.
What Happened
The end of white space is here, with advertisers using every last open space to sell their products and services and committing atrocious actions of attention-theft. Take Amazon for example: the company now sells ad space on shipping boxes. Sponsors use every opportunity to advertise from taxi screens to movie theater ads to sports teams at stadiums. Even the rich and famous have become billboards for ads with Beyonce pushing Pepsi, while Matthew McConaughey pretends to drive a Lincoln.
Links
- Amazon Now Selling Ad Space On Shipping Boxes (Jun 2015)
- Capitalism’s Suffocating Music (Oct 2014)
- The Crisis Of Attention Theft—Ads That Steal Your Time For Nothing In Return (Apr 2017)
- Something doesn’t ad up about America’s advertising market, (Jan 2018)
The total market value of a basket of a dozen American firms that depend on ad revenue, or are devising their strategies around it, has risen by 126% to $2.1trn over the past five years. The part of America’s economy that is ad-centric has become systemically important, with a market value that is larger than the banking industry.