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DUBAI: “Media agencies sit down every year and consolidate who they buy with — they literally cut off publishers from a list,” said Richard FitzGerald, the founder of Augustus and the publisher of Lovin Dubai. “We can’t even get on that list.”
Read More Arab News: Mideast Media Agencies Holding Publishers’ Fate In Hands
Last year, 2016, wasn’t a great year for media agencies. In the US, the highly anticipated investigation into kickbacks and ‘non transparent’ business practices caused quite a stir while in South Africa, the Competition Commission and the MAC sector charter gave agencies food for thought.
In this week’s #mediasnack Tom chats to Bob Liodice, CEO of the US Association of National Advertisers about the decision to launch its media transparency investigations last year and what has changed as a result.
Media-buying agencies in the US are paying their clients secret multi-million dollar settlements rather than show them all of their contracts and service agreements with media owners.
Rebates have been an open secret for years. The payments and discounts that media owners give to agencies in return for certain volumes of spend are a fact of trading life in the UK. But few media owners like to talk about rebates for fear of upsetting agencies. Suddenly, however, the issue is being thrust into the spotlight for two reasons.
Read More Campaign: Should more media owners disclose agency rebates?
Five of Australia’s six major media buying groups have condemned the idea of asking media companies to pay for help building closer relationships with advertisers.
Following a year in which the rancor and partisanship in the U.S. ad industry was second only to the U.S. presidential race, it turns out there is much more unity surrounding issues of media-buying “transparency.” While it likely is a far less scientific process than the U.S. electoral process, a survey of ad industry executives shows that far more side with the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ (4A’s) transparency “principles” than agree with the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) recommendations.
The Australian Association of National Advertisers’ (AANA) guidance around agency contracts offers an important, non-prescriptive starting point to promote better media transparency. The industry should unite to chart a sensible way forward.
Read More AdNews: AANA guidelines are starting point on media transparency, not the finish line
Media agencies are considering their position over media guidelines released by the Australian Association of National Advertisers with several indicating the 52-page contracts aren’t workable.
Read More AdNews: Media agencies: AANA’s ‘blanket approach’ to contracts unworkable
Ad industry titan Irwin Gotlieb, global chairman of GroupM, on Thursday blasted the ANA’s report on agency transparency released earlier this year as an attempt by “auditors” and “forensic investigation firms” to drum up business.
Read More MediaPost: Gotlieb Slams ANA Report On Transparency