by Ken Auletta
First published 2018
The $2 trillion advertising and marketing industry faces existential upheaval as digital transformation reshapes every aspect of the business. Ken Auletta gains access to the most powerful figures navigating this crisis, from legendary WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell, who rails against Facebook and Google while competitors embrace them, to GroupM's Irwin Gotlieb, whose media agency confronts machine-driven ad buying that threatens traditional models. Facebook's sales head Carolyn Everson represents the new guard disrupting established practices, while creative millennials deploy technology to block ads entirely. Industry power broker Michael Kassan of MediaLink connects these players as former allies become competitors amid swirling accusations of corruption and kickbacks. The transformation from Mad Men's instinctual creativity to data-driven "Math Men" creates winners and losers in an industry where survival depends on adapting to technological change. Auletta reveals how the fraying trust between key players threatens the advertising revenue that funds media as we know it.
Genres: business, economics, non-fiction, technology, 21st-century
Vibes: fast-paced, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: industry-upheaval, technological-change
368 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press