How Covid-19 Supercharged the Advertising Triopoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon – The Wall Street Journal

When the pandemic upended the economy last year, companies took a hard look at their advertising plans.

Oreos maker Mondelez International Inc. shifted money meant for TV commercials during March Madness basketball and the Summer Olympics into digital platforms. A hefty chunk went to Alphabet Inc.s Google, which offered data on what locked-down snack lovers were searching for.

Athleisure company Vuori Inc. more than tripled its spending on Facebook Inc., spotting a chance to juice sales of its sweatpants to people stuck at home. Office-furniture maker Steelcase Inc. built an operation to sell directly to workers and advertised aggressively on Amazon.com Inc.

The Big Three of digital advertisingGoogle, Facebook and Amazonalready dominated that sector going into 2020. The pandemic pushed them into command of the entire advertising economy. According to a provisional analysis by ad agency GroupM, the three tech titans for the first time collected the majority of all ad spending in the U.S. last year.

Beneath the shift are changes driven by the pandemic: more time spent on computer screens; more e-commerce; a jump in new-business formation, and a steady improvement in tech giants ability to demonstrate a return on ad investment.

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How Covid-19 Supercharged the Advertising Triopoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon - The Wall Street Journal