Barclays: Agencies need to evolve as digital marketing spend rises – but don’t get too close to the behemoths

Digital advertising spend in the UK is set to beat £15 billion in 2019 – but we’ll still have to wait a while before commercial applications of machine learning and augmented reality (AR) will seriously bolster the figures.That’s the primary finding from Barclays in its latest report. Titled ‘Adtech ascendancy: The next wave of digitalisation in marketing’, the study focused on various market forces, from the technology itself, to those at the sharp end of making it happen, as well as how it will impact future working methods.The report, which augmented its analysis with opinion from industry leaders across marketing services, looked specifically at the relationships between both the FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) as well as their Chinese competitors, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BATs).