I disagree with a number of points in this article.
"Now, we live in an age in which the intangible haze of soft-sell is no longer necessary, and the battle for market share comes down to the raw strength of your product. “The sun has passed midday on brand,” he says."
I don't think this is remotely true - as an example, take a look at the insurance industry (GEICO, AFLAC, AllState, etc). These guys are spending on massively on brand advertising. Now, obviously, the LTV of these customers is huge so they can afford the high CAC that comes with brand advertising. This advertising is pure Don Draper imho.
"The brand getting the most buzz in the car industry is Tesla. “What’s different about them? No advertising. Innovation in the car industry is not about putting Cindy Crawford in a TV ad. It’s about building a better battery.”"
Yes they have a great product - and, at the moment, they have that differentiation and, most importantly, buzz. That will change as the market for electric cars matures - and then you'll see Tesla start to advertise. It doesn't make any sense for them to spend on advertising right now given that they are in the press literally every day (right now for some stuff that isn't necessarily positive). Maturity of market matters.
"Clients have even started to question the ad business’s claim to efficiency. The model I described above is a simplified version of a dizzyingly complex system whose details few can fathom, involving multiple companies taking multiple fees. Unsurprisingly, fraud is rampant."
If this is true we'll likely see a pullback in digital advertising - or at least a movement to direct buys only on specific websites (vs. network buys).
My opinion: digital advertising is proving to be less and less efficacious, with costs going up and results going down. At the same time, we have less and less product differentiation. The result should be more spending on traditional brand advertising. Digital advertising is a channel - and spend to that channel will ebb and flow.
In my small world of advertising (B2B SaaS), I've seen digital advertising becoming largely ineffective. Too many companies marketing similar products and services. I would argue, in this world, brand advertising therefore becomes more important. That is, developing a brand is as or more important than product because all the products (in the eyes of prospects) are largely the same. Note that I am not saying product doesn't matter, or that a product cannot differentiate in a specific market (e.g. Slack), but that companies need a distribution advantage to succeed over every other company - and that either comes from the product or brand (e.g. Drift).
Now, having said all this, do I think the Ad Tech industry is a mess and that a major shakeout is needed? Yes. Do I think that digital advertising is largely too consolidated with a handful of players (Google, Facebook and now Amazon) - yes. Advertising can be still be great and useful - but Ad Tech needs some help.