It\u2019s been about a week since the ANA\u2019s report into transparency hit the best seller lists. Lest we forget (and judging from some of the less temperate comments flying around some seem to have forgotten) the report was titled: \u2018An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the U.S. Advertising Industry\u2019. It was not titled \u2018Why Advertisers Hate the Holding Companies\u2019, nor \u2018We Name the Guilty Parties\u2019.<\/p>\n
The report was about transparency in media placements in the USA. People who it must be assumed knew what they were talking about were interviewed, as is very common anonymously. The findings have been released. Either respondents were uniformly mistaken or there\u2019s something in what they had to say.<\/p>\n
The two key players \u2013 namely the agencies and the advertisers do not come out of the report too well. The agencies because they\u2019ve been found not to be any too transparent; the clients because they drove fees ever lower and then agreed to contracts that in effect let the agencies do whatever they wanted.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a little strange that the holding companies have expressed so much pained surpise, given that on at least two comparatively recent occasions AdAge has reported on practices subsequently highlighted within the K2 report.<\/p>\n
The ANA report is not only about rebates; it also speaks (in 4.4.1) of the difficulties arising when agencies hold equity in supplier companies.<\/p>\n
As reported in AdAge<\/a>, Laura Desmond, then CEO of Publicis company Starcom held a Board position at Tremor Video from January 2012 until resigning her post in September 2013. Her role on Tremor\u2019s Board had been vetted and approved by Publicis.<\/p>\n In 2012 18% of Tremor\u2019s revenues came from Starcom clients, again according to AdAge. 18% seems a big number.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s rebates dressed up as service agreements, considered by the ANA in 4.2.3.1. This is the practice of \u2018selling\u2019 the supplier research, or some other service at a hugely inflated price \u2013 in fact so inflated often the buyer never gets to see any report, or indeed any benefit.<\/p>\n In June 2015, AdAge reported<\/a> two adtech vendors being \u2018offered\u2019 this exact \u2018service\u2019 by Havas. One of the \u2018buyers\u2019 reported that no service was ever forthcoming from this arrangement, involving a Havas company in Spain.<\/p>\n The Cog Blog <\/a>in March 2014 reported on\u00a0WPP buying the ad network 24\/7, and putting it in with their then-trading desk Xaxis, thus putting Xaxis in the position if it chose to do so of buying from itself. Not that anyone would have known as Xaxis then considered it un-necessary to tell clients where it was placing their digital budgets.<\/p>\n Back then (in February 2014) Bill Duggan from the ANA wrote: \u201cOur business has historically been built on trust and relationships. But this transparency crisis is causing trust to break down and ultimately that will affect the relationships marketers have with their agencies and the media\u201d.<\/p>\n The press focus on the ANA report to date has been on rebates. But this is a far more nuanced and complex issue than did \u2018A\u2019 take cash from \u2018B\u2019.<\/p>\n There\u2019s the whole issue of influencing plans. If an agency has a volume deal with a preferred supplier, the agency\u2019s planners are told to use those suppliers, regardless of what\u2019s best for the client.<\/p>\n This happens, everyone knows it happens, and it\u2019s very tough to spot unless someone talks (as happened when K2 and before them Jon Mandel interviewed those at the heart of the process).<\/p>\n This is\u00a0a serious issue as it gets right to the heart of undermining trust. If your agency recommends Title A or Website B how can you be sure that they\u2019re doing it because it\u2019s best for you, or because it\u2019s best for them? More significant is if (as is widely believed happens) an agency proposes digital channels on the basis that they make a far higher margin that way regardless of whether or not the channel works for the advertiser.<\/p>\n No holding company has yet come out and said their buys don\u2019t influence their plans.<\/p>\n At least there is one executive from a holding company who has contributed a named piece to the discussion, even if some of it is (by the author\u2019s own admission, at least in the edit on LinkedIn) somewhat self-serving.<\/p>\n GroupM\u2019s Rob Norman published a piece<\/a> on MediaVillage.com pointing out the investments made by his company in adtech, and data analytics. He also made the valid point that some companies, including GroupM have moved the game forward when it comes to such online topics as viewability and verification.<\/p>\n Suggesting that WPP\/GroupM have made these investments for any reason other than because they\u2019re good for WPP\/GroupM is somewhat disingenuous, but no less useful for that. It is true that GroupM has pushed further than most to try to understand the complexity of the market, even if one might take the cynical view that they have in part created and have certainly benefited from the complexity.<\/p>\n Rob doesn\u2019t pretend to address the fundamental issue of transparency raised by the ANA, rather he suggests that the balanced view should take account of the efforts\u00a0WPP and others have put into steering advertisers through a time of great change. He\u2019s right to make the point, even if no-one has suggested otherwise.<\/p>\n Last week we said here<\/a> that collaboration and discussion was the way forward, not throwing around remarks like<\/a> \u2018My CEO wants (ANA CEO) Bob Liodace\u2019s head\u2019 (a charming comment made anonymously (oh the irony) by a holding company executive).<\/p>\n You might take issue with some of Rob Norman\u2019s argument, you might think that he\u2019s deflecting the discussion away from the real issues raised by the ANA\u2019s research but what cannot be criticised is his tone of voice. He is trying to advance the discussion. More holding company media agency managers should follow his lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been about a week since the ANA\u2019s report into transparency hit the best seller lists. Lest we forget (and judging from some of the less temperate comments flying around some seem to have forgotten) the report was titled: \u2018An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the U.S. Advertising Industry\u2019. It was not titled \u2018Why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}