Biggest Number Wins; We All Lose
19 January 2026
The fact that the ad industry is in a mess isn’t in doubt. We operate a business model no longer fit for purpose. We face substantial job losses. Creativity in advertising is in retreat. Original content creation is under threat. Direct political interference in how budgets are spent is real. Audience definitions and numbers are no longer verified.
With hindsight this has been brewing for decades; ever since media excellence was defined as delivering the biggest numbers for the lowest cost.
Many see ‘media’ as being all about the buy. It is sad that even today, multi-functional media agencies are still reduced to the lazy shorthand descriptor: ‘media buyers’.
We remain in Wildean territory, understanding the price of everything and the value of nothing
As media (and tech / data) people we don’t help ourselves; we revel in our own language, we don’t welcome outsiders. We wallow in our specialism.
Big numbers rule, even if we have to make them up.
The US media business is the main culprit; we all follow along. Yet historically the way the US ‘does media’ has leant towards the making of the buy over the construction of the plan.
The upfront was a thing – is a thing.
TV audience measurement was (is) programme, not commercial based. Selling audiences to commercials rather than programmes may reflect reality but it meant smaller numbers. Heaven forfend.
Someone in the US will reply to this and blame advertisers not their advisors. This is like saying we were only following orders in prioritising the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
Buying a large audience, cheaply, may have obvious benefits, but it’s unbalanced. The nuance of how ads are displayed, how they’re consumed; how their effect is impacted by context are all important.
We know this; but when push comes to shove, we follow the biggest numbers and spend accordingly.
There is a real danger this will end in tears. Consider the giant social media platforms, the big number factories.
They’ve weaponised audience measurement; everything is acceptable as long as the number is big. They avoid scrutiny and hide within walled gardens.
But what if, despite ever-bigger numbers, time shows that for many the ads don’t work? Who will call who to account?
There’s a parallel with ad fraud. Today, advertisers waste something like US$100 billion a year advertising to nobody.
That is an extraordinary fact. The ad industry ignores it.
There are lots of reasons why we do, but arse-covering is never a long-term solution. Nor should funding criminal activity be written off as ‘cost of doing business’.
Eventually some CFO, or CEO will join the dots; in fact, I’m in little doubt that that is already happening.
Here’s a fictional advertiser non-marketing perspective.
‘We are spending millions of dollars, and when I ask you what we get for it you quote numbers made up by those taking the money. I read that a significant amount is going either on supporting those who mislead the public with fake AI-generated ‘ads’, or who mislead our shareholders by buying ads that nobody sees.
I hear on the news that people die as a result of what they see online. There’s an AI product that ‘undresses’ women. There’s talk of bans amongst young people.
When I ask what we’re doing to ensure our ads only appear appropriately all I hear is algorithms, and political pressures.
My agency recommends we ‘spend behind the numbers’ regardless; but nobody can explain to me what the numbers mean in my world.
My sales are down; my margins are under pressure. My brand is being undercut.
We should take a break from wasting money on advertising and review what we can do instead.’
We should start by educating our clients. We know that 200 million is bigger than 150 million but there’s more to media thinking than that. We need to moderate our obsession with big numbers
We are expert advisors. We need to do what’s best for our clients, not follow the herd or be bullied by politicians.
Clients pay for everything. The rest is noise. Agency and holdco CEOs need to stress that, again and again to their shareholders.
They need to look forward, to read the room. As Pesach Lattin’s Adotat has it this week: “A lot of people inside adtech have realised this apparatus isn’t good for anyone. Not brands. Not agencies. Not even vendors long-term because eventually the music stops and someone notices the room is full of people pretending to dance while pickpocketing each other.”
For their part clients and only clients can make change happen. Educating them in how to ask the right questions, how to value their media spend, what to look out for should be our job.
This is why Advertising: Who Cares? is going to pull together the best thinking without fear or favour, for everyone to use.
One contribution to cleaning the Augean stables.