The big ‘tech-tonic’ shift: As Amazon begins to break the advertising duopoly – what’s left for anyone else?

Google and Facebook have held a well-documented, vice-like grasp over digital advertising budgets for over a decade, commanding 56% of global digital ad spend in 2018. That’s a fairly lucrative share of a market worth £470 billion. Viewing these figures, it is easy to regard the incumbent digital duopoly as unassailable; concluding their influence is too wide and their foundations are too strong. But rumbling away behind these astronomical numbers is a very real threat to the current digital status quo. Sitting on mounds of valuable data, Amazon has long been murmured as a contender with the power to disrupt the dominance of Google and Facebook. These murmurs have escalated up the richter scale to tremors following the latest report from eMarketer. The report details how, for the first time, the combined market share of the digital duopoly shrank in the US. Amazon’s fledgling ad business has muscled in to take 8.8% of the US digital ad market, becoming the third largest player. It’s clear to see why this Amazon-led disruption is happening. Amazon holds hugely valuable data that shows not only what a customer is purchasing, but what they are watching, reading, ordering, eating and drinking. Amazon has become so integral in the lives of many consumers that many see the data that Amazon holds as beneficial as they are able to offer a tailored experience.