It’s a truism now: “The world will never be the same.” But how will it change, exactly?
This week on AdExchanger Talks, Digital Capital Advisors CEO Jay MacDonald draws on his long experience as a founder, media executive and M&A adviser to offer predictions on how COVID-19 will transform marketing and technology.
Winners: e-commerce, streaming, elearning and tech platforms.
Losers: VC-backed startups, media agencies, traditional retail.
When advertising dollars start to flow again, MacDonald predicts they’ll go directly into digital. Although travel and other hugely disrupted categories might not benefit, money will return to the ecosystem, he says.
From an investment standpoint, private equity is well positioned. But many VC-backed startups will be stranded high on the beach.
“PE generally invests in companies that are already profitable, and they think they’re going to have a flood of opportunities available in the next month,” MacDonald says. “A lot of VCs are backing only a few of their portfolio companies and others are going to have to find a home, which plays into what the M&A market might look like [in] the second half of the year.”
And it’s not pretty. We’re going to see a lot of companies on the market, he says. In an ideal world, that’s not where they’d wish to be, “but it’s their only option.”
Listen to the whole thing:
