Digital Advertising Isn’t Dead, But It’s Killing the Marketplace Economy

Marketplaces Are Experiencing Their First Real Dip Since the Pandemic

Joe Procopio
5 min readNov 27, 2023

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Have you ever noticed that ads for insurance companies don’t put the product in front of you? They show you emus and geese and Flo and shit.

I wanted to use this article to finally declare digital advertising dead. But I couldn’t. Because it’s not entirely true.

I mean, there’s still that awesomely evil Whiplash guy showcasing weirdly disastrous claims for Farmers, and Liz Lemon’s boyfriend running around as the mayhem guy. But for the most part, it’s Patrick Mahomes cutting it up with Travis Kelce, trying to get us not to think about those horrifying moments after the collision while reminding us we need someone to call.

Insurance, as a product, is difficult to understand. And more importantly, its value prop is something no one actually wants to think about.

But I’m not here to bash insurance.

I’m Here To Bash Marketplaces

Like I said, I set out to write an article on the death of digital advertising. I rewrote it six times. It was trash every time.

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Joe Procopio

I'm a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur. AI pioneer. Building TeachingStartup.com. Write at Inc.com and BuiltIn.com. More about me at joeprocopio.com