How Covid-19 Supercharged the Advertising ‘Triopoly’ of Google, Facebook and Amazon; Amazon, Facebook, and Google Control 90% of Digital Ad Spending. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE NEXT ELECTION?

Nicolas Ortega

How Covid-19 Supercharged the Advertising ‘Triopoly’ of Google, Facebook and Amazon

When the pandemic upended the economy last year, companies took a hard look at their advertising plans.

Oreos maker Mondelez International Inc. MDLZ 0.33% shifted money meant for TV commercials during March Madness basketball and the Summer Olympics into digital platforms. A hefty chunk went to Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 0.34% Google, which offered data on what locked-down snack lovers were searching for.

Athleisure company Vuori Inc. more than tripled its spending on Facebook Inc., FB 4.12% spotting a chance to juice sales of its sweatpants to people stuck at home. Office-furniture maker Steelcase Inc. SCS -1.36% built an operation to sell directly to workers and advertised aggressively on Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 1.55%

The Big Three of digital advertising—Google, Facebook and Amazon—already dominated that sector going into 2020. The pandemic pushed them into command of the entire advertising economy. According to a provisional analysis by ad agency GroupM, the three tech titans for the first time collected the majority of all ad spending in the U.S. last year.

Beneath the shift are changes driven by the pandemic: more time spent on computer screens; more e-commerce; a jump in new-business formation, and a steady improvement in tech giants’ ability to demonstrate a return on ad investment.

Success breeds success for what some call the “triopoly.” The increase in shopping and spending on Google, Facebook and Amazon’s platforms is adding to their already voluminous data on users, giving them even more appeal for advertisers that look to target their messages. --->READ MORE HERE

Amazon, Facebook, and Google Control 90% of Digital Ad Spending. What Does This Mean for the Next Election?

Can a handful of companies be allowed to control the internet?

Handing over control over the pipeline of our economy and our marketplace of ideas to a handful of apolitical companies would be bad enough. But allowing companies that are militantly political and increasingly banning, censoring, and suppressing the views of more than half the country is a crisis.

That crisis is only intensifying as the control by the speech cartel grows.

The Wall Street Journal sketches out the incredible dominance of just three companies over digital advertising. --->READ MORE HERE

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