BigTech has kept information about advertising (who is seeing the adverts, who is clicking on the adverts...) largely in a safe under lock and key.  This is about to change and advertising agencies could be a major beneficiary.

Advertising agencies likely need to invest in capabilities to analyse huge volumes of data, or engage external advisors to do this work.  The opportunity is for advertising agencies and other advertising intermediaries to create new products/services and business models that are more meaningful, insightful and valuable to the current offerings.

Just over four years ago the Financial Times newspaper published an article (see quote) about the challenges advertising agencies were starting to feel from BigTech.  The EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) (see link for an introduction - Digital Markets Act: Timeline for action if your business is using a third-party digital platform (shoosmiths.co.uk)) is a legislative competition law 'key' for advertising agencies materially to improve their business through the insights that 'unlocking' big-data can provide.

Key questions advertising agencies (and publishers, advertisers and AdTech providers) need to address include:

1. to what level of detail can they mine (unlock) the data held by the 'gatekeepers' which the DMA will regulate,
2. what 'walls' can the gatekeepers legitimately put in place,
3. what are the grey areas,
4. what arguments can advertising agencies use to promote their interests,
5. how will they use the pricing information and performance metrics they can obtain, and
6. what is the interface with data protection rules (GDPR) and what compliance systems should they put in place.