The monopoly of Big Tech in digital advertising
Digital advertising has experienced exponential growth in the last decade, displacing traditional media such as television. According to data from the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project (2024), Alphabet (parent company of Google) and Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) concentrated 82.5% of the sector’s income in 2022, maintaining a dominant trend since 2019. This duopoly has reduced the margin of action for local competitors, as evidenced by the Cofece litigation against Google Mexico in 2023 for alleged anti-competitive practices.
The decline of TV and the digital boom
The study reveals a paradigmatic change: while in 2010 television absorbed 58% of advertising investment in the media, by 2022 its participation was reduced to 26%, being surpassed by the internet (58%). This shift reflects the migration of audiences to digital platforms, where segmentation and measurement of results offer insurmountable advantages for advertisers.
Innovative alternatives to the traditional model
Faced with the hegemony of Big Tech, strategies such as native advertising and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) are emerging, which prioritize contextual integration and non-intrusiveness. Brenda Benítez, digital marketing expert at the American Marketing Association, highlights that native advertising succeeds by blending in with organic content, as long as it meets two criteria: transparency (clear labeling as “sponsored”) and narrative value (resolving needs before promoting products).
Success stories and applied technology
Platforms like MGID operate as intermediaries between media and brands, monetizing spaces with widgets that replicate the design of the sites (example: “We recommend you” sections in Expansion). According to Linda Ruiz, its director for Latam, this model avoids remaining inventories and is based on pay per click (CPC), optimizing conversions. An emblematic case was the interactive campaign of the video game “Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope” (Ubisoft, 2022).
In the field of DOOH, companies like APPcelerate use geospatial intelligence to measure impacts. Alexis Santaella, its spokesperson, explains how beacons capture device IDs from nearby smartphones, crossing data with sources such as INEGI to adjust messages in real time according to weather, traffic or demographic profile. This market projects investments of 138 million dollars in Mexico.
Conclusion: towards smarter advertising
The evolution of the sector requires balancing innovation and ethics. While AI allows content to be personalized, its role must be complementary to human creativity. The alternatives analyzed demonstrate that advertising effectiveness no longer depends on volume, but on contextual relevance and precise measurement.
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