Brands need to fire adtech
I feel like the author of this article is missing the reasons behind the rise of adtech in the first place, and doesn't really address how traditional advertising can compensate.  There are at least three forces at work here:1) People straight up don't want to see ads.  Ad blockers, Netflix, etc. are a natural response to this.  If your medium relies on traditional ads, there's an increasingly large chance that your audience won't ever see those ads in the first place.2) Companies want to know that their advertising dollars are actually producing results, and traditional advertising completely sucks at this.  If you've never run a traditional ad campaign, I suggest giving it a try and then decide how much value you think you got out of it.  You can spend thousands to millions of dollars and have absolutely no idea if your money impacted sales even the smallest amount.  Compare that to adtech, where you get real data on outcomes on a regular basis.  Even if it's crap data, it's often better than "well we think the brand is stronger now".3) Traditional mediums for advertising are dying out quickly, especially with younger demographics.  Newspapers used to be the prime advertising medium, and now most of them are guilting, begging, or strong-arming people into viewing their ads online.  Magazines readership has been declining year over year for at least a decade.  Live broadcast TV viewing among younger viewers has been flat or declining as well.  Where are you supposed to find captive audiences willing to sit through your golden-age traditional advertising spots?I agree that the adtech industry is slimy and in desperate need of a shakeup, but idolizing traditional advertising while ignoring the difficulties of ads in today's world doesn't really help here.