In her latest musings for ExchangeWire, Shirley Marschall dives into the pitfalls of playing it safe and choosing the incumbent behemoths, over smaller yet better alternatives.

There’s a pattern in ad tech. No, not a technical one. Nope, this is not about AI, it’s about human nature:

We don’t always choose the best solution.

We choose the one that feels safest.

And “safe” usually means… big, familiar, defensible.

Whether it’s Nielsen over a niche MMM vendor, Google DV360 over an independent DSP (with TTD as the rare exception), or a holding group agency over a specialised indie one, the biggest players don’t always win because they’re the smartest. They win because no one wants to get blamed for taking a risk.

If the small vendor fails, you get blamed.

If the giant fails, the giant gets blamed.

Legal scrutiny, principal buying controversies, brand safety failures…the giants stumble, it’s a “headline,” but certainly not a career-ending decision for the person who picked them.

That mindset drives a staggering amount of decision-making in ad tech and quietly reinforces the very lock-ins we claim we want to break.

The illusion of objectivity

Decision-makers love to believe they’re being rational. That they’re choosing the most scalable, proven, or “integrated” solution.

But underneath those justifications is often something far more primal: the fear of being wrong alone.

Choosing a big-name vendor, even if it’s not the most innovative, comes with a kind of career insurance. It’s a shield.

“No one got fired for choosing IBM” has simply evolved into:

“No one gets blamed for choosing Google. Or Nielsen. Or WPP. Or [insert holding company here].”

The risk-reward paradox

On paper, ad tech is a meritocracy.

Innovators win. Results matter.

But in practice? There’s a catch.

When something goes wrong, no one wants to be the person who took the risk.

Better to go with the name everyone knows. The platform that already has procurement approval. The logo that looks good on an internal slide.

Because then, if things fail, it’s not your fault.

When default becomes the limitation

There’s nothing wrong with choosing a big player. Some do great work. Some are best-in-class.

The problem is when they become the default.

Because once a platform becomes the default, curiosity dries up. Experimentation slows. Teams stop evaluating. And soon, better options don’t even get a seat at the table.

That’s how we end up with:

• DSPs chosen for their bundled inventory, not performance.
• Measurement providers chosen for their brand, not their methodology.
• Agencies chosen for their pitch theater, not their cross-functional capabilities.

And the echo chamber cheers you on

In an industry fueled by LinkedIn likes and Cannes panels, the loudest names don’t just dominate. They validate.

When everyone in your feed praises the same platform, vendor, or agency, it stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like a requirement. The echo chamber rewards alignment, not experimentation.

Nobody gets applause for picking the small-but-brilliant player, especially if no one’s heard of them.

“Better safe than sorry” becomes “better visible than smart.”

And that visibility loop is self-fulfilling:

• The bigger the name, the more headlines they get.
• The more headlines, the more credibility.
• The more credibility, the easier the next pitch.

Meanwhile, better solutions get stuck on the sidelines: underfunded, underhyped, and under-considered.

The internal ad tech hype? It stays inside the industry echo chamber.

If no one outside of it hears the applause, did it even move the market?

What we lose when we play it safe

Playing it safe has a cost.

We miss out on innovation.

We entrench inefficiencies.

We give more power to the platforms we already claim to fear.

And we lose the muscle memory to question, to investigate, challenge, and explore alternatives.

Because real transformation doesn’t come from doing what everyone else is doing. It comes from asking: What’s actually better? And having the courage (and bandwidth) to follow the answer, even when it’s unfamiliar.

Choosing better takes more work

Let’s be honest: choosing the underdog isn’t just risky, it’s exhausting.

It means cutting through the hype, separating a genuinely smart startup from a slick pitch deck, and doing your own due diligence when no one else has. You’re not just comparing features; you’re defending a decision that others may not understand.

There’s no analyst report to back you up. No glossy Cannes activation to point to.

Just your judgment and the hope it pays off.

So it’s no surprise most teams stick with the known quantity.

It’s easier. Safer. More defensible.

But easier doesn’t mean smarter. And defensible doesn’t mean right.

What this means for the future of ad tech

If we want real innovation, we need to start rewarding bold decision-making, not just safe bets.

That means:

• Giving smaller players a real shot, not just a courtesy RFI
• Questioning whether the “default” solution is still the right one
• Recognising that scale ≠ superiority
• Build cultures where smart risk-taking is defensible, not punishable

Otherwise, we’ll keep reinforcing the same power structures we pretend to disrupt.

We’ll keep calling it innovation while making the same choices we always have.

Risk ≠ recklessness

This isn’t about “move fast and break things.” It’s about building a failure culture that tolerates smart risk and learns from failure, where experimentation is rewarded, not punished.

Because in ad tech, the real innovation rarely comes from playing it safe. It comes from having the structures, leadership, and mindset to question defaults, explore alternatives, and survive if something doesn’t work.

If we want to move forward, we need to stop treating safe decisions as smart ones and start building environments where trying something better isn’t a career risk.