I see a concerning pattern forming in the marketplace. Agencies are bracing for change as advertisers heavy up on programmatic, often in-house, according to a recent report. But that wasn’t the first piece to address this topic. I believe this is a troubling trend for all parties, not just agencies. There are three primary causes driving this trend. First, it is so white-hot that advertisers feel the need to touch it directly and not be left behind. I wasn’t working when cable stormed onto the scene in the early 1980s, or even online in the mid-1990s, but I haven’t seen evidence of clients taking either of those submedia in-house. So why programmatic specifically? Second, we have decoupling. In the early 1980s, creative and media were integrated together at agencies.
