Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

Xaxis launches insight report to help advertisers navigate a “uniquely challenging” Q4

In response to the prospect of a uniquely challenging Q4, omnichannel and programmatic media specialist Xaxis UK has released a report looking at the role of programmatic media in helping marketers to navigate the current economic uncertainty. 

The report – Certainty in uncertain times: how programmatic media helps brands drive impact in a turbulent market – gathers the latest views of senior decision makers from a range of agencies, media platforms, brands and trade bodies, including MediaCom, Mindshare, Wavemaker, The Trade Desk, Boots and the IAB UK. 

Discussing the current levels of market turbulence, Jon Mew, Chief Executive of IAB UK, commented: “We’re seeing a strange mixture of caution and optimism right now. The key thing we’re hearing is uncertainty. Given the wider economic outlook, there’s not much clarity on what marketers are planning and there’s less visibility than normal on what budgets are going to be.”

Ollie Shayer, Online Media Director at Boots, believes the situation facing marketers this Q4 is truly unprecedented: “It’s a perfect storm in many ways. There’s never been a World Cup at this time of year and it’s resulting in record levels of inflation in linear TV advertising. That extra level of noise in the marketplace means that we’ve had to think really hard about how we reach our customers in the most efficient way.”

Timely knowledge and advice

Explaining the reasoning behind the new report, Zuzanna Gierlinska, Managing Director at Xaxis UK, said: “After the pandemic-based disruption of the past couple of years, marketers had hoped for a more regular, more predictable Q4 this year. Instead, the ad industry is looking at a year-end that’s arguably one of the most challenging and complex that marketers have ever had to deal with.

“The big problem advertisers face is that, this Q4, ‘business as usual’ isn’t an option. Shifts in consumer sentiment and consumer behaviour mean the media strategies that would have delivered for brands in the past are no longer appropriate. Many, challenged with deciding their best route forward, are becoming more short term in their outlook as a result.”

Gierlinska added: “At Xaxis, as part of GroupM, we work with a wide range of brands and agencies to make programmatic media more effective and efficient. From our cross-sector vantage point, we can see the impacts the current level of uncertainty is having on media activity right now, so we felt it would be useful to offer some timely advice to help advertisers navigate the turmoil.”

The report examines the current situation facing advertisers and their agencies before looking more closely at the role programmatic media, omnichannel planning and guaranteed outcomes can play in providing agility for brands and de-risking media investments.  

You can download the full report below.

*Xaxis is a client of Bluestripe Content Studio, owned by Bluestripe Group, the owner of NDA.