The era of the Mad Men is now firmly over, with the instant answers of chatbots now replacing the fast-talking advertising creatives of New York’s Madison Avenue as the industry’s centre of gravity.
The enormous budgets, fully stocked drinks cabinets and hotshot filmmakers on speed dial — all made famous in the long-running TV series — have given way to teams of coders, with AI models replicating work in minutes but at a fraction of the cost.
The traditional advertising agency model that brings together creative talent, strategic advice and media distribution, is facing an existential threat as a result, hitting share prices and putting jobs at risk.
“We have seen more disruption in the last 12 months than we have seen in the last 12 years,” says Arthur Sadoun, chief executive of French advertising group Publicis.
The Future of Marketing
