One of the biggest trends we have seen this year is the growing interest in in-housing, with direct platforms like Google and Facebook making it appear easy to self-serve. The moment has even gained enough traction for the incoming head of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Nigel Vaz, to officially note it as a major issue for agencies. 

Last year’s GDPR legislation certainly shook things up for advertisers, and we can expect more to come throughout 2020. In a continued effort to clean up programmatic, the ICO have placed digital advertising – in particular Real Time Bidding (RTB) – under scrutiny. The industry has until Christmas to demonstrate that we can still target users, while still respecting their privacy.

It is expected that the world, and the digital landscape in particular, will change more in the next 5 years than it has in the last 50. With the advent of 5G, our changing relationship with personal data and a shift in the way consumers are choosing to spend their money, we’re already beginning to see this play out. 

It’s been the biggest non-story of the last 3 years, but 2020 may mark an end to the Brexit affair in one way or another. With the first departure date already missed, and the second giving way to a General Election, many are wondering if the UK will ever leave the EU.

We’ve talked about the duopoly of Google and Facebook so far, but there’s a new player on the horizon who is more familiar with ecommerce than advertising. Amazon is gaining market share and, from a near-standing start, has increased advertising revenues by 64% in just two years.

It’s no secret that high street retail is struggling, with the British Retail Consortium finding that one in ten high street shops are now empty. The rate in decline in footfall is the worst experienced since 2012.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity we are excited for is the rollout of 5G which is set to offer technological advancements that will make for major changes in the future.