Played-Out Playbook: Advertisers Relying On Same Strategies The Last 5 Years

Five long years ago, back when the Philadelphia Eagles were preparing to defend their Super Bowl championship and none of us were prepared at all for COVID or ChatGPT, almost half of all advertisers were, well, doing what they’re still doing today.

That’s the main finding from Accenture’s research into the advertising playbook, which combined interviews and surveys of more than 500 advertising professionals.

“We discovered that 45% of US and UK advertisers have been using the same approach to advertising for the last five years,” the report says, “and 71% of this group don’t plan on changing their strategy in the next year, leaving 32% that will continue to use outdated advertising playbooks.”

Accenture found that roughly 1 in 3 advertisers were worried about their job security if a new strategy or channel didn’t deliver.

“Advertisers are reluctant to change their strategies across audience targeting, platform selection, measurement, attribution, creative — you name it — likely because there is a lot of friction in change and the status quo has worked for most advertisers in a world with cookies,” says Nikki Mendonça, Accenture’s managing director, in a MediaPost interview. “This reflects an if-it’s-not-broken-don’t-fix-it mentality, but with big generative AI investments, we could see a near future where advertiser strategies get quickly rewritten.”

Accenture offered “key actions to thrive in a cookieless world,” from fortifying in-house customer data and using revenue-based ROI as a central metric to investing in identity-resolution capabilities, but highlighted the vital importance of change. 

“As the world contends with the latest economic turmoil and technological advancement, advertisers have more on their plates than ever and can’t afford to be left behind,” the report says. “The time to act is now.”