Looking back on the marketing industry over the last 25 years

Advertisers love to be on the cutting edge. Since the turn of the century, the cutting edge has been sharp enough to draw blood.

In the year 2000, TV advertising was king, print media was abundant, and static billboards and good old-fashioned radio gobbled up traditional ad spend. But over the last 25 years, it’s all been turned on its head. Digital media now reigns supreme, with Google- and Meta-owned platforms claiming dominance over most of the internet (and ad spend). The TV industry continues its own digital transformation as consumers embrace streaming television over cable boxes. Retailers became ad platforms. Entire job functions have shifted. AI tools are on the precipice of ubiquity.

While the core job of a marketer in 2000 and in 2025 is still to promote brands, products, and services, the toolkit has entirely shifted—and the entire media landscape has somehow both fractured and congealed.

Marketing Brew is highlighting some of the most transformational moments in the marketing and advertising world throughout the last 25 years, with a particular examination of how some of the biggest events have brought us to where we are today. Whether that’s looking at how media consolidation changed the landscape, how Netflix put the TV industry on defense, or how Facebook (literally) lost its cool, this project is our effort to not just make sense of the past, but better understand what the next 25 years might bring.

We’ve compiled it all here in an interactive timeline—so stay a while and explore the past, present, and future of adland.