Looking back on the marketing industry over the last 25 years
Exploring the pivotal moments that shaped marketing

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.
2000
2001
AOL completes purchase of Time Warner
SmarterChild, an early AI chatbot, debuts
Google introduces Google Images, inspired by queries for Jennifer Lopez’s 2000 Grammys dress
Apple announces the iPod
2002
Kelly Clarkson is crowned the first winner of American Idol
2003
MySpace debuts, revolutionizing social networking
2004
TheFacebook debuts as a website to connect Harvard students
Friends’s final episode, “The Last One,” is viewed by 52.5 million people on NBC
Google goes public at $85/share
Napoleon Dynamite is released widely in the United States
Ken Jennings’s 74-game Jeopardy! winning streak comes to an end
Looking for More?
We’ll be adding to our Quarter Century Project every month for all of 2025. Check back for additional stories or subscribe to Marketing Brew for all of your industry needs.
Script Stuff!
Editorial
Executive Editor: Josh Sternberg
Managing Editor: Margarita Noriega
Editor: Kelsey Sutton
Editorial Operations: Ben Marx
Reporters: Ryan Barwick, Katie Hicks, Alyssa Meyers, Jasmine Sheena, Jennimai Nguyen
Standards & Style Desk: Nicole Jones (Managing Editor), Becca Laurie (Deputy Editor)
Design
Design Director: Alyssa Nassner
Art Director: Frank Scialabba
Designers: Anna Kim, Emily Parsons
Illustration: Jiawen Chen
Special Thanks To
Lance Holt, Abbie Winters