For several months now, industry bigwigs such as Martin Sorrell have been warning of Amazon 's arrival in the world of digital advertising. The WPP boss described Bezos' company as a sleeping giant, but it seems that it is already beginning to wake up.
And the e-commerce company's plans are certainly hugely ambitious, targeting not only advertising but also search and publishing.
In 2016, it began offering its first products to advertisers, generating revenues of $1.6 billion , an increase of 60%, and is now preparing to soar much, much higher.
Fear is not, by any means, a characteristic of Amazon, and it is determined to prove this by conquering Google's current forbidden territory, the search engine.
But it is also thinking of shaking up Facebook by offering services to bolivia phone number publishers. And it certainly has enough weapons to destabilise its rivals and grab a slice of the digital advertising market.
A potential third force is beginning to grow in the sector, although not without criticism from some retailers who accuse the company of being a double-edged sword, harassing and destroying those brands that do not want to be present on Amazon.
In fact, Ethelbert Williams, CMO of InstaNatural, a beauty brand with a long history on the e-commerce platform, said at the Digiday Brand Summit held in Berlin that Amazon is a “frenemy” from a pricing point of view and that “if you are not on Amazon, you simply do not exist.”
This double game that many criticise Bezos' company for also involves the obligation for brands that want to use its marketing services to also be present in its e-commerce market.
These conditions have provoked rejection from some retailers and even Bryan Wiener , CEO of 360i, assures Digiday that "there are enough reasons as a retailer to be afraid of Amazon and the fact that it sells advertising is not one of them."
Rather, Wiener believes the problem lies in the lack of support the company offers to the brands in its ecosystem to increase the efficiency of their e-commerce, as well as in the closed-mindedness it maintains in terms of data sharing.
Thus, despite this scenario in which more and more retailers are describing Amazon as a "frenemy" , the company seems more willing than ever to break the duopoly of the digital advertising market.