广告业遭遇数字新世界

    整合能给广告公司带来明显的好处。如今，投放广告变得太过复杂，如果一家公司旗下拥有所有层面的服务，便可以使整个过程更加流畅，进而可以大幅削减成本。当然，这种成本削减不可避免地会转化成裁员。

    广告公司向潜在客户的推销的卖点是广告业中仅存的、没有发生变化的地方：广告人是专家，因此客户不必专业。

    如今他们精通的不再是创意，不是让消费者想要知道在哪儿能买到牛肉，而是如何在消费者考虑购买的那一刻，不失时机地把广告主的产品展现在消费者眼前。

    不过，谷歌和Facebook这类广告平台同样掌握了广告公司的这项技能。而这正是广告业所面临的最大风险。极少数广告发行商控制了全球绝大多数的广告位库存，他们有足够的动力简化广告的购买过程。广告购买过程越简单，公司就越可能购买广告。广告效果越好，公司就更愿意花钱做广告。

    随着策略性广告购买变得更加容易，商家将不再需要专业人士告诉他们如何投放广告，因此，广告公司的许多本事已经难有用武之地。

    然而，广告业的职位虽然会减少，但广告业不会就此消失。大多数广告发行商无法提供谷歌和Facebook所能提供的服务，例如无限制分析和简单的广告位竞价过程，这让广告人有许多机会，继续兜售他们的专业知识。

    关键在于，从整体上来说，随着广告业所遭遇的这种技术性破坏变得日益频繁，有工作、有能力买得起广告里的商品的人员会越来越少。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Consolidation has significant perks for advertising companies. Placing ads is so complicated right now that having all the layers of service under one roof can smooth the process and deliver significant cost reductions. Still, those reductions will inevitably translate to layoffs.

    The pitch ad agencies make to potential clients is one of the few aspects of the business that hasn't changed over the years: They are experts so their clients don't have to be.

    What they are experts in is no longer the creativity that will make everyone want to know where the beef is. Instead, it is in how to get an advertiser's product in front of a consumer at the exact moment when that consumer is thinking about making a purchase.

    This skill is one the agencies share with the likes of ad platforms Google and Facebook. This is the most significant risk the industry faces. The few publishers that control a significant majority of the advertising inventory around the world have an incentive to make ad buying easier for companies. The easier the process, the more likely they will buy ads. The better the results, the more they will be willing to pay.

    As strategic ad buying becomes easier, companies will no longer need experts to tell them how to place their ads, removing much of what the agencies are doing.

    Still, while the number of jobs in advertising may decrease, the business won't be completely wiped out. Most ad publishers don't offer what Google and Facebook can offer, such as unlimited analytics and simple bidding processes for ad placement, providing plenty of opportunities for the ad people to continue selling their expertise.

    The concern is that, from a bird's-eye view, as technological disruptions like the one in the advertising world become more frequent, there will be fewer employed people out there who can afford what is being sold to them.