Quote from Ndubuisi Ekekwe on March 29, 2024, 9:01 PM

TRANSFORM, not just run that business. Yes, before the dawn of ICT utilities [I coined the phrase in a Harvard article] like Facebook and Google, ad agencies and publishers were the gatekeepers of news. People need news for different reasons. And to reach people (the consumers), brands went to the publishers and ad agencies. The ad agencies have always worked as feeders to the publishers.

But with the arrival of the ICT utilities, a massive dislocation is happening: brands are now reaching customers without going through ad agencies and publishers. Power has shifted, and the most powerful entities are not the creators of the news, but those that organize and make sense of them, in a world with largely unlimited distribution channels, anchored by the web. If news breaks in Nigeria, everyone goes to Google and not the individual websites like Guardian and Punch. Even though Google ends up taking us to the most useful site, it does so (largely) without regard to legacies. Yes, my blog (Tekedia) and Guardian will compete for attention before Google!

Simply, publishers and ad agencies are challenged as the money brands used to pay move to Google and Facebook. This disintermediation is just beginning. With AI in the game, the possibilities are endless. The aggregation construct, the most dominant business model of the 21st century, will change markets. Only leaders who can transform firms, governments, etc, and not run them, will make impacts.

Watch my video on how this works.