Dynamic Direct Mail

The home furnishings giant is ending publication of its annual catalog after 70 years, citing the increased shift to online browsing and shopping. “Turning the page with our beloved catalog is in fact a natural process since media consumption and customer behaviors have changed,” stated Konrad Grüss, managing director, Inter Ikea Systems B.V. “In order to reach and interact with the many people, we will keep inspiring with our home furnishing solutions in new ways.” The decision to discontinue the catalog comes as Ikea has enhanced its digital capabilities and online shopping. Last year, Ikea’s online retail sales increased by 45% worldwide, and its web site had more than four billion visits.

Advertisers still rely on third-party cookies for programmatic, with retail becoming the largest programmatic buyer on the programmatic. Although Google plans to eliminate third-party cookies by the end of 2024 and fully implement the Privacy Sandbox, its targeting cookie alternative, the industry is far from prepared. Despite several setbacks, the industry continues to move forward. The larger programmatic spenders have shifted more investments to cookie alternative traffic to test and analyze performance before third-party cookies disappear.

The U.S. advertising marketplace fell 4.6% in September vs. the same month a year ago, marking the fourth consecutive monthly decline, and suggesting the beginning of a new U.S. ad recession. While the June-September 2022 declines compare with healthy gains for the same months a year ago, the 2021 boom was also the beginning of downward trend (see chart above). The new monthly data comes as major agency holding company forecast units have been reaffirming double-digit growth expectations for calendar year 2022 and mid-single-digit gains for 2023, at least at this point.