In my 1998 book Reconnecting with Customers in the Relationship Age, I wrote that the key to value creation in media and advertising would be “the degree to which sales organizations can facilitate processes that build direct and relevant relationships with customers in an era of increasingly automated exchanges.” At the time, online trading systems were still nascent, but the signals were clear: efficiency-driven technologies would transform how media was bought and sold. The future of the industry would hinge on whether companies leaned into commodity trading or value-based relationship building.
From Mad Men to Middlemen: The Destruction of an Industry
