It’s seems BAT dominate digital advertising in China now.

According to eMarketer’s forecast, by 2019, China’s digital advertising market will reach $76 billion, with BAT taking 70% of the share. Similar to the US where Google and Facebook contribute to almost all digital ad growth, China’s digital landscape is also dominated by giants.

BAT’s pioneering expansion in the digital world is not just about the role of “media”. They aim to be panoramic digital marketing platform. They invest in media, technology, product and service. They establish their own DSP and DMP,providing brand owners with comprehensive marketing tools.

Lawrence Wan, Managing Director of Amnet China from Dentsu Aegis Network, said: “In China’s digital market, the biggest buyer of media is not 4A or advertiser, but BAT. They have been actively adding other media to their own Ad Exchange platform andalso offer priority access to their own DSP.”

With search, social,and EC in hand, BAT now own the biggest volume of user data which work only in its own ecosystem. The “isolated data islands” phenomenon has been adding to their competition barrier.

When giants’ resource, data, and ad tech platform are all in place, the landscape of China’s digital marketingworld has changed. With advertisers becoming more and more reliant media giants, these super powers are having more say in the digital world than ever.

While Western Ad Tech companies suffer from Google and Facebook’s dominance, many China’s independent Ad Tech platforms are also facing challenges. “The most prevalent phenomenon is that media giants will favor their own DSP, putting independent DSP in a disadvantageous position due to lack of resources,” said Lawrence Wan.

Besides lack of media resource, YangJiongwei, GM of 360’s Commercial Product Division, pointed out that independent ad tech platforms have relatively low competition barriers with regard to data utilization. This may also explain why they are gradually losing ground tomedia-owned marketing platform.

Yang Jiongwei said:”A lot of DSP ad tech companies do not have advantage in using of mediadata, or advertiser’s first-party data. Taking re-targeting as an example, independent DSP may soon be replaced media-owned DSP.

Advertisers have miscellaneous offline data, and data from different channels/ platforms/ devices. But how to put them in good use is the key question. For example, user Device ID, Microsoft super ID, and Ali ID are fragmented. Now, media giants see data access service as the corner stone. They could provide more value to advertisers via the open platform they built. In comparison, third-party tech company is obviously in the weak position.”

Lawrence Wanadded that the overall environment of programmatic advertising has changed.“In China, due to the rapid yet wild developmentof RTB in previous years, many advertisers have lost trust in this mode. In the past two years, they are more inclined to use PDB (Programmatic Direct Buy)- a kind of assured, transparent way to buy ads. At present, 60% of programmatic buy is PDB, with a large share from media giants.”

In PDB, only simple functions such as Ad serving is required. There is no need for complicated function such as real-time optimization. Thus the value of DSP is marginalized. Lawrence Wan said: “The key factors for PDB success is still in the big media hands, negotiating for sufficient inventory, CPM inflation and the inventory pass-back rate… This problem may not be solved by developing AI technology.”

Yang Jiongwei saw that many AdTech companies are in transformation. Some have chosen to go outside ofAdTech with“non-media behavior data” . They engage in digital consulting services and help with digital transformation throughout clients’ value chain. DSP and other AdTech business are all included in CRM system in this case.

This development path is what we call “from AdTech to MarTech”, with further potential to go from MarTech (marketing technology) to GrowTech (growth technology)——providing strong technical support to clients’ goal of growing consumers/users. The kind of service will be more valuable and endow AdTech companies with higher competition barrier.

In addition, the release of the European Union’s GDPR makes it clear that the control and ownership of data belongs to users, rather than media. As the industry attaches more importance to data protection, the restriction of data application somehow loose the control from large media. In such situation, AdTech companies still have good opportunities. But if they remain at low-level data utilization, their value will only get weaker and weaker.

Since 2017, big 4A groups such as WPP, Publicis and Dentsu Aegis Network have all established strategic partnerships with Alibaba/Tencent. Behind the alliance, there still are voices saying that BAT is taking over agency’s role and draining agency’s profit.

Giants such as BAT do have advantage in media and data, which is very attractive to advertisers. In our interview, we found many advertisers will ask their agency to connect to BAT resource when buying media.

“The cooperation with BAT is not directly related to profit. It can be seen as agency’s ability to enhance media purchasing power and make them more convincing when facing clients. When ’embracing giant media partner’, agencies may no longer enjoy customized services which will be provided by general downstream ad technology platform.” Trading Desk company FugeTech’s CEO Guo Wei said.

“It’s possible advertisers work directly with media, bypass agency. In the overall value chain of ad buying, media is always the most valuable part. Especially for advertisers who adopt In-house strategy, it’s natural for them to work directly with BAT,” Guo Wei said. But at this stage, “the majority of advertisers still need agency in execution. What’s more, from the perspective of BAT, their business scope is huge and they possibly don’t want to fight against agency for the ‘small’ (in their eye) business.”

Partnership with BAT is a plus. In the meantime, agency groups also understood that if the service they provide only depend on big media platforms, their own value will be weakened.

We see that 4A are enhancing their tech and data muscle by developing self-owned user data platform. Dentsu Aegis Network acquired Merkle in 2016, one of the largest independent CRM and performance marketing agencies in the US, and now own the largest user data platform among 4A peers. “Actually the cooperation between agency groups and media giants is now largely based on technology and data,” Lawrence Wan said.

Last but not least, there are more competitors on the way. Accenture Interactive, a black horse for the “Madman” world, recently launched its own programmatic buy platform. When asked, Lawrence Wan stated that “programmatic buying by consulting firm” may work in other markets. There will be more challenges here in China, as the most valued advertising data is still in media’s hands.

大媒体平台的垄断，对广告技术圈意味着什么？

BAT垄断数字广告市场，已经是不争的事实。

据eMarketer预测，到2019年，中国数字广告市场规模将会达到760亿美元，BAT三家公司将会占据其中70%的份额。与Google 和 Facebook 几乎包揽了美国数字广告的全部增长类似，中国数字广告市场也早已被媒体巨头占据。

BAT在数字广告业的开疆拓土不仅仅是立足于媒体巨头的角色，而是作为数字营销平台，在媒体、技术、产品、服务各方面布局，建立自有DSP和DMP等平台，给品牌主提供近乎全套的营销工具，构建自己的全景营销生态。

电通安吉斯旗下安纳特（Amnet）中国董事总经理温道明（Lawrence Wan）说：“在中国市场，媒体资源的最大的购买方不是4A公司，也不是广告主，而是BAT。作为媒体巨头，他们也一直在不断将其他各方媒体加入到自有Ad Exchange平台中，强化媒体资源优势，而这些媒体资源也会优先提供给他们自建的DSP平台。”

另一方面，基于搜索、社交以及电商的主要媒体入口，BAT三家巨头占有着数字广告业最大量级的用户数据。在各自封闭的媒体环境中，BAT建立的数据孤岛某种程度上更增强了他们的竞争壁垒。

当巨头的媒体资源、数据及广告技术平台都齐备时，中国数字广告市场的格局就变了——广告主对巨头数字广告平台的依赖性更强，进而使得大媒体巨头在整个数字广告圈的话语权要远远高于其他数字技术平台，甚至高于一贯站在数字营销链条顶端的Agency公司和品牌主。

与西方的AdTech（广告技术）公司遭遇谷歌和Facebook的挤压一样，众多中国的独立广告技术平台正在接受着来自BAT的挑战。“最直观的现象是，大媒体方的媒体资源会自然而然地向自有DSP平台倾斜。作为独立DSP平台，资源对接明显受限。”温道明说。

除了在媒体资源上受到压制，360公司商业产品事业部总经理杨炯纬分析，一些独立广告技术平台在数据利用方面的竞争壁垒比较浅，是他们被媒体方数字营销平台取代的内在原因。

杨炯纬说：“不少DSP广告技术公司对媒体数据的利用并不具优势，此外，对广告主第一方数据的挖掘利用水平也不高，这就导致这些DSP公司的业务容易被媒体方DSP所取代，如简单的重定向功能，为什么媒体方DSP不能做？

另一方面，媒体方的数据孤岛客观存在。广告主拥有的很多线下数据、离线数据与跟各媒体渠道、各类设备的数据，如用户的Device ID、微软的super ID以及阿里体系的ID之间是割裂的，因此，当下大媒体巨头的平台正在以数据打通服务作为基础架构，通过提供开放平台，让广告主获益。与巨头相比，第三方技术平台的数据打通能力欠缺，服务价值相对较弱。”

温道明补充，程序化广告整体大环境的变化，让广告技术平台的角色变得尴尬。

他说，“在中国市场，由于前几年RTB广告野蛮发展，失去了不少品牌广告主的信任，近两年，品牌广告主都更倾向于采用PDB（程序化直购）这种放心、透明的购买方式投放广告。当下，PDB形式的品牌程序化广告已成主流，占比达到至少60%。当然，这其中还是离不开与各大型媒体平台的合作。”

问题是，在PDB中，只需要Ad serving这样简单的功能，并不需要实时优化等复杂功能，在此情况下，DSP的价值被边缘化。温道明说：“PDB的成功很大程度上是因为大媒体的力量（虽然不是唯一的因素），可以得到足够的库存，CPM溢价和退返率……这个问题可能并不是「发展AI技术」能解决的。”

杨炯纬看到，现在市场上很多广告技术公司都在转型，有的技术公司已经并不将Adtech作为核心技能，或者他们选择在AdTech的基础上，将数据挖掘范围向「非媒体行为数据」延伸，从事数字化咨询业务，帮助客户在其全产业链上开展数字转型。其中，DSP业务及其他AdTech的业务功能都被包含在CRM系统中。

这类公司的发展路径就是大家通常所说的“AdTech要往MarTech走”，更进一步的方向可能是从MarTech（营销技术）到GrowTech（增长技术），即围绕企业的用户增长，提供技术支撑。从整体来看，这类公司的竞争壁垒要高很多，市场价值更重要，足以避开巨头锋芒。

此外，欧盟GDPR的发布，明确了数据的控制权和所有权都归用户所有，而不是大型媒体。当数字广告业逐步走向数据的保护，数据的受限应用时，本质上也削弱了大型媒体对用户数据的垄断。在这样的变局下，Adtech公司未必没有机会，但是，如果他们还停留在低层次、低水平的数据利用方式上，其价值只会越来越弱。

自2017年以来，WPP、阳狮和电通安吉斯等Agency集团都分别与阿里巴巴/腾讯建立了战略合作伙伴关系。在Agency与媒体巨头联手的背后，却也有声音表示，BAT巨头正在取代Agency的角色，压低Agency的利润。

BAT巨头体量庞大，拥有媒介、数据优势，对广告主形成强有力的吸引力。广告技术流采访得知，在品牌方的媒介购买过程中，不少广告主都会要求他们Agency必须要对接BAT渠道。

“与BAT的合作关系对于各Agency集团而言，其实与带来多少直接利润没有太大关系，可以将这种合作看作是Agency增强媒介购买力的砝码，让他们在广告主面前更有说服力。当然，在‘抱媒体方的大腿’时，Agency可能很难在巨头处享受到一般下游广告技术平台提供的诸多定制化的服务了。”TradingDesk平台提供商复歌科技公司CEO郭为分析。

BAT是不是可以绕过Agency直接跟广告主合作？

“有可能的，因为在广告购买的整体价值中，媒介始终是最有价值的一部分。特别是那些执行In-house策略的广告主们，选择跟BAT直接合作也是理所当然。”郭为表示，但在现阶段，“大部分广告主的实际执行工作中还是需要Agency的，更何况从BAT的角度说，他们规模庞大，也是不愿意抢Agency媒介代理的‘小’生意的。”

各大Agency集团与BAT的合作是必然之举，但是，他们明白，如果代理公司的服务全部依赖阿里、腾讯这些大媒体的平台，那么，自身的价值也在被削弱。

“没有哪家4A公司能完全靠‘抱媒体方的大腿’来生存。可以看到，4A公司在增强自己的技术、数据实力——各大Agency集团现在都已经开发了自有的用户数据平台。电通安吉斯收购了美国最大的独立CRM和绩效营销代理机构之一Merkle（美库尔）公司，拥有全球4A领域内最大的用户数据平台。而且，Agency集团与媒体巨头的合作，很大程度上也是基于技术、数据来的。”温道明说。

近期，作为咨询公司入局媒介购买业务的代表，埃森哲互动推出了程序化购买平台，对此事件，温道明表示，「咨询公司的程序化购买」或许在国外市场行得通，但是， 在中国市场将会遇到更多的挑战——数据还是在大媒体手里。