Imagine your impressions are pieces of art. Maybe they aren’t all masterpieces, but some work has gone into creating them. You sell what you can in your store, but foot traffic is down in your area. You get approached to sell your art at an auction house.
Two stipulations: there is no minimum number of potential buyers, and they’d rather you not set a minimum price.
You figure at least you’ll learn what the market values your art at and that can inform what kind of art you produce. You sign up.
You quickly find out there is nearly an endless number of artists joining this auction house. You look at some of the art, and you’re pretty sure some of them are forgeries. You’re relieved when you see that the art will undergo an appraisal process, but most of that happens after the auction. You also learn that some of your artwork won’t be available for auction, but you don’t know why. Some of these appraisal services actually come with a fee. Meanwhile, you see some of the knockoffs from the big art houses are highly coveted.
It’s your turn to auction your artwork. There are only a few bidders. In a moment, the auction is over. You learn nothing about why the bidder picked your art. It is significantly below what you would have received in your store, and you’re not even sure what you were paid covers your investment.
You go to other auction houses. Same bidders. You get agents to help you sell. Their advice: flood the market - no one knows why the bidders bid, but the more they see, the more they buy. Often, they just take the same piece of art and use a different frame. Typically, they aren’t asking for permission - they do their thing, and you, unfortunately, don’t ask any questions: 'Sell my art' is all you say, not knowing the damage being done to your reputation in the process.
You find out that those few bidders are actually agents for many buyers. They know how much each buyer would pay going into the room. They determine who would pay the most, but that doesn’t change the amount they would bid. They start at the same low bid, and since there are so few other bidders, the winning bid rarely approaches what the buyer would have paid.
You know all of this is wrong. You wanted to create something buyers want to buy and to make enough money to create more valuable art. You never meet the buyers anymore, and everyone extracts a fee, only asking you to produce more. Scale, they say…it’s the only way. I am sure my analogy can be picked apart. I agree that most impressions are not pieces of art. For all of that, I stand by this: the auction taketh and it better start to giveth back. The threat is always that money will shift to the big platforms. Everyone loses in that scenario. So build me a f'ing business model that works before I (a) go out of business and you’re stuck as well (b) I build up a business without you.
Your reading checklist:
- From manual to momentum: Alex Campbell on automation at theScore
Base.Camp Savannah is where the future of ad ops will be debated and decided, are you in?
We’re counting down the days until our community comes together at Base.Camp Savannah to talk through the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. The agenda is packed with critical topics like optimizing the programmatic tech stack, how to own the privacy landscape when it all feels like quicksand, CTV and retail media, rethinking the homepage opportunity, and much more.
But is Base.Camp for you? Is it worth your time? Let’s talk about it:
There’s a reason why leaders from the NBA, Farm Journal, Rough Draft Atlanta, The Atlantic, PlayOn Sports, Business Insider, The Motley Fool, Dow Jones, Cars.com, TeamSnap, Blavity, Redfin, MediaNews Group, Legacy.com, and countless others are already on the list for this October..
But your voice is critical to our ability to move these conversations forward. Base.Camp is almost here. Raise your hand today, and we’ll work with you to get you to Savannah.
We only have a few seats left, so the time to hesitate is through.
Advertising Economic Forum is coming to Ad Week this October!
At this private, invite-only experience during Ad Week NYC, on October 7, 2025, our industry’s most innovative practitioners, strategists, and decision-makers will tackle the industry’s biggest shifts (from AI to investment) through honest conversations, data-sharing, and collaboration-driven outcomes.
Speakers include Sanja Partalo, Domenic Venuto, Bob Lord, Sim Blaustein, Matt Spiegel, and Tom Triscari.
Due to the exclusive and focused nature of these conversations, you need to request an invitation, if you’d like to attend. We hope to see you there!
Ian Rosen is coming to Digital Day Camp this October!
Digital Day Camp is returning to Toronto on October 22, 2025. And we’re excited to announce that Ian Rosen, President of Harry Rosen, will be joining us for our morning keynote in an exclusive fireside chat with David U.K.
This one-day working session is designed for Canadian senior leaders across publishing, brands, agencies, and ad tech. Here’s a snapshot of some of the critical topics we’ll be working through together:
- When will good behaviour with privacy and data governance pay off?
- Can direct-sold strategies still thrive alongside programmatic dominance?
- How do changing traffic patterns impact revenue plans, and how do we respond?
- How do we bring Gen Z into our world, or survive in theirs?
- How do we raise the bar for CTV ad quality?
- What does it take to make data-driven approaches actually pay off?
- Where should we be placing our bets for 2026?
- What role will agentic advertising play in redefining the market?
You need to hurry, though. Early bird pricing ends on September 24!
Base.Camp Lisbon is built for the global conversations our industry needs
The spirit behind each Base.Camp event is the same, but while the challenges of the EU may mirror what’s happening in the United States in some ways, wholly different global conversations need to take place. That’s exactly why Base.Camp Lisbon exists.
Together, we’ll tackle topics like what the future of publishing needs to look like (when we’re not all playing defense), positioning direct-sold so it can actually compete with programmatic, building alignment between sales teams and ad ops, what the future of agentic-traded advertising looks like, and a look ahead at retail media in Europe.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg for this packed agenda.
Leaders from Adevinta, LiveNation, Tripadvisor, Wall Street Journal, Kinective Media℠ by United Airlines, The Weather Company, Publisher Collective, Planet Sport, Netflix, News Group, PGA Tour, Telegraph Media Group, Livenation, City Digital Oy, Condé Nast and others have already committed to joining us this November.
Will you be there? If so, now is the time to raise your hand.
A full list of our 2025 events all in one nice little package:
- Base.Camp: Savannah, GA October 5-8 just a few seats left!
- Digital Day Camp, Toronto - October 22
- Base.Camp: Lisbon, Portugal - November 2-5
More things to keep your eyes out for:
- Read our take on the top updates/news items from around the industry.
- Look for your next job on our job board. Also - sign up for our Jobs Newsletter (delivered every Thursday). Subscribe here.
- Fill your open positions by helping us help you: Submit a job and check out a job seeker like Job Seeker 39, just search “Job Seeker 39” to be taken directly to their description.
Going to DEMXCO the week?
Our friends at The Digital Voice have put together a crowdsourced DEMXCO event list. Check it out and add your event(s).
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