Advertising Sector Scorecard, Q3 2023 Update - Thematic Intelligence

US Big Tech, specifically Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet, dominate the thematic screen of the analyst's advertising sector scorecard. Thanks to their sophisticated AI systems, advanced advertising technology (adtech), and the wealth of data they possess, they are best placed to reap the benefits of disruptive themes like AI, gaming, and ecommerce. But these companies will also have regulators breathing down on their necks on several issues, from antitrust and data privacy to misinformation and online harm. For example, while top performers Microsoft and Apple remain shielded from data privacy scrutiny, they stand accused of anti-competitive practices around their cloud and app store operations.

X's corporate rebranding and change of leadership cannot hide the long list of challenges the platform faces, including service disruptions, intense regulatory scrutiny, and increased competition. In particular, there is concern that the platform has become more prone to misinformation and hate speech since Elon Musk bought it. In February 2023, the company, designated as a very large online platform under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), failed to complete its first EU test on dealing with disinformation. X's advertising revenue has fallen by half since the company was bought, as revealed by its owner in July 2023. To reflect this poor social media strategy, we have lowered X's score on the social media theme from 3 out of 5 to 2, indicating that the company's activity in this theme will be detrimental to its future performance.

Scope

This sector scorecard provides a top-down, comprehensive outlook for the key players in the advertising sector over the next two years, based on the key themes set to transform their industry landscape.

Reasons to Buy

• Companies that invest in the right themes become success stories. Those that miss the important themes in their industry end up as failures.
• The analyst's thematic research ecosystem is a single, integrated global research platform that provides an easy-to-use framework for tracking all themes across all companies in all sectors. It has a proven track record of identifying the important themes early, enabling companies to make the right investments ahead of the competition, and secure that all-important competitive advantage.
• The analyst has developed a unique thematic methodology for ranking all major companies in all major sectors based on their relative strength in the big themes that are impacting their industries.
• Our thematic engine tags over 145 million data items across five alternative data sets-patents, jobs, deals, filings, and news-to themes. The vast datasets within our thematic engine help our analysts to produce sector scorecards that identify the companies best placed to succeed in a future filled with multiple disruptive threats.