At last year’s Association of National Advertisers financial management conference, GroupM Chairman Irwin Gotlieb publicly acknowledged that the relationship between media agencies and clients had gotten to the point that the term “agent” no longer fits. “You cease to be an agent the moment someone puts a gun to your head and says ‘These are the CPMs you need to deliver,'” he said.

It was a bold statement, particularly given the growing debate over the appropriate level of transparency in agency buying practices. Moreover, it contrasted with the standard practice, adopted in the early 1990s, of “sequential liability,” in which agencies buy as agents on behalf of clients, which bear the onus of paying media vendors.

Read the full AdAge article here.