For years, The Trade Desk was the industry’s favorite underdog—the plucky DSP that could. A company built on the promise of independence, objectivity, and open-web idealism. A tech partner, not a threat. The anti-Google in Patagonia vests.

🧠 Agencies adored them. Really.
They whispered sweet nothings like “transparency” and “media neutrality,” and handed over billions in programmatic spend while Jeff Green smiled, nodded—and took notes.

But somewhere between retail media exploding and CTV taking over, something shifted.
The tone changed.
The meetings changed.
The power dynamics flipped.

Now?
Jeff Green doesn’t think agencies are obsolete. He thinks they’re inefficient.
And that’s arguably worse.

Here’s what Jeff Green actually said on the Q4 2023 earnings call: “Our fastest-growing segment is brands working with us directly through Joint Business Plans. These relationships are growing 50% faster than traditional agency-led spend.”

📉 Translation:
"We’ve stopped waiting for agencies to catch up—and started planning without them."

Here’s another: “Brands want a closer relationship with technology, but they still want agencies to manage those.”

🧠 Translation:
“You can still sit at the kids' table—as long as you’re quiet and don’t ask for strategy.”

Let’s be crystal clear:
Jeff Green is not shy about how he sees the future of advertising.
He believes it’s going to be:

✅ Data-first
✅ Automated
✅ AI-powered
✅ Platform-driven
❌ Not necessarily built by agencies

The Trade Desk isn’t trying to build an agency.
They’re trying to build the one machine agencies wish they had—and then sell it directly to brands.

Let’s break it down like a good pitch deck never will:

These aren’t partnerships—they’re power moves.
Private dinners. Invite-only “planning summits.” Whispers to CMOs over dessert.

Suddenly, brand media leads are syncing with TTD before an RFP is even drafted. Agencies used to define strategy.

Now they’re being handed a pre-loaded Kokai dashboard and told to “optimize.”

Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons—the retail holy trinity—are all tied into TTD’s platform.
Not as clients, but as collaborators.
TTD built their tools, trained their traders, and locked in advertiser access.

📉 Who’s not in the room?
Every major agency trading desk that used to charge 12% just to interpret shopper data.

Media plan? ✅
Budget allocation? ✅
Attribution? ✅
Optimization across CTV, video, display? ✅✅✅

One buyer told Digiday: Why are we paying planners to do what Kokai does before lunch?”

And let’s not forget the real kicker:
🧾 Kokai is priced as software, not headcount.
So it doesn’t need billable hours. It just… works.

Remember when agencies made bank buying TV at scale, repackaging it, and selling it at a markup?

Yeah, Jeff remembers that too.

That’s why OpenPath exists—to give brands direct access to top-tier CTV inventory (Netflix, ESPN, Hulu) without the agency middlemen. No pass-throughs. No margins. No “preferred partner” markups.

💀 Agencies didn’t just lose their margin. They lost their moat.

It’s not just about cookies going away—it’s about who owns the next-generation identity graph.
TTD’s UID2 is rapidly becoming the plumbing for the open web.

And guess what?
It’s built for brands—not agencies.
Because when identity lives inside the buying platform… well, there’s not much left to “strategize” about.

Let’s talk about that little content hub they quietly launched.
You know the one—polished articles, smart-sounding op-eds, thought leadership galore.

🧠 It’s not journalism.
It’s not thought leadership.
It’s controlled narrative engineering—a direct line into the CMO’s inbox, bypassing the press, the agencies, and frankly, the messy reality of independent scrutiny.

🧾 Data fees are rising.
🎭 Transparency is declining.
📞 Clients are getting calls directly.
💰 Agencies are being asked to justify 10% fees on something Kokai now automates.

And here’s the big irony:
Agencies used to love The Trade Desk because it wasn’t Google.
Now, some are quietly wondering if it’s becoming something worse: a Google that’s nice to your face but slowly absorbs your entire role.

🧠 Once they acquire that last piece of the puzzle—an AI-driven creative platform—it’s checkmate.
TTD becomes the full-stack solution. Agencies become… vendors. Optional ones.

You're not out yet.
But you're not in like you used to be.
And Jeff Green’s not sending a breakup text.
He’s just moving your toothbrush into the guest bathroom.

(Or: Why Agencies Are Starting to Sweat Through Their Margins)

For a company that swears it's “just a DSP,” The Trade Desk is now moving with the gravitational pull of a holding company—and the financials to back it up. What started as an anti-Google alternative has evolved into a platform with its own orbit. The numbers aren’t just impressive—they’re a quiet referendum on where the power is shifting in digital advertising.

Let’s run the scoreboard:

Let’s translate all this into plain English:

✅ TTD makes more money than most agencies dream of.
✅ They’re growing faster than agency-led media spend.
✅ Their valuation has surpassed entire conglomerates.
✅ They own the most future-proofed channel (CTV).
✅ And they’ve quietly built a customer base that includes over 1,000 direct brand relationships—no middleman required.

📌 And here’s the real kicker:“The Trade Desk spends more than some agencies make.”

That’s not a shot across the bow. That’s the iceberg.
And most agencies? Still trying to rearrange deck chairs on their media planning process.

(And What You’re Already Missing)

Let’s not dance around it: If you’re still reading the free version of ADOTAT, you’re watching the revolution from the bleachers—with a pair of opera glasses, two innings behind.

What we’re doing with ADOTAT+ isn’t just publishing longer stories. We’re lighting up the shadows. We’re dissecting the machine before it chews you up and spits you out.

Take The Trade Desk exposé.

What you just read? That’s the free half.
The fire is in the ADOTAT+ version. Here's what you're missing:

A clickable, annotated breakdown of how Kokai rewires a media plan—line by line, role by role. You think you’re safe because your agency holds the deck? Kokai is the deck.

We spoke directly with current and former execs from Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP who saw this coming—but weren’t allowed to say it publicly. Now they are. And they did. But only inside the paywall.

Internal data on how agency-led budgets are being sliced and siphoned in real time by brand-direct deals. We map the migration. You won’t find this on LinkedIn.

What brands are actually saying when agencies aren’t in the room. Spoiler: they’re not complaining about CPMs—they’re asking how fast they can offboard you without a PR hit.

Kokai’s decision logic? UID2’s onboarding framework? OpenPath’s publisher conquest model?
We’ve got it all.
You can ignore it, or use it to build the only viable counter-strategy left.

You're missing the stuff nobody wants public.
You're missing the stories before they become headlines.
You're missing the shift as it happens, not when it’s over.

So here’s the truth:
If you're in media, and you're not reading ADOTAT+...

You’re not in media. You’re in denial.