
For the past few days I’ve had the pleasure of participating in the Advertising Research Foundation’s 2016 Audience Measurement conference. While my overall experience has been great, the conference was off to a bad start for me.
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For the past few days I’ve had the pleasure of participating in the Advertising Research Foundation’s 2016 Audience Measurement conference. While my overall experience has been great, the conference was off to a bad start for me.

Last week, the ANA released its Media Transparency Report. The report has been framed by much of the press as a bombshell. Words like “kickbacks,” “fraud,” “unethical practices,” and even “jail time” have been seen in a variety of recent headlines.

A hit television show in Spain saves its biggest surprise for the credits: It’s co-produced by a unit of WPP Plc, an advertising giant known more for marketing soap, ketchup and soft drinks than for making TV programs.
Read More Bloomberg: At WPP, the Ketchup Ads Come With a Side of Prime-Time TV

In a previous era, advertising agencies and their clients were joined at the hip. Now, some of the most powerful entities on Madison Avenue are grappling with serious fractures.
Read More Variety: Mistrust on Madison Avenue – Why Can’t Marketers, Media Buyers Get Along?

The ANA report on agency transparency erupted last week, intensifying a long-expected public dispute between brands and their media agencies.
While the report focused on brands and agency holding companies, its findings could potentially affect ad tech companies.
Read More AdExchanger: How The ANA Rebate Controversy Could Impact Ad Tech

Brand and agency relationships have been somewhat fraught recently with a record number of agency relationships going under review last year – more than the previous three years combined in terms of dollars at stake.
Read More Marketing Dive: ANA Defends Report Exposing Agency Rebates

So it has been a week since the Association of National Advertisers report on media transparency came out. It paints a dire picture of agencies using all kinds of smoke and mirrors to generate income for themselves, while still being able to claim they are upholding their contractual obligations to their clients.
Read More MediaPost: The Really Guilty Party In The ANA Debate? Advertisers!

The long awaited report into the use of kickbacks and rebates in the US ad industry, commissioned by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), has been released. An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the US Advertising Industry was carried out with K2 Intelligence.
Read More The Media Online: Kickbacks and Rebates ‘Pervasive’ in US Agencies

The Association of National Advertisers report about media rebates in the U.S. has again plunged the industry into controversy by raising questions about “non-transparent” agency practices. But it also raises questions about how much marketers themselves actually want transparency. And that answer is sometimes as clear as mud, with some signs pointing to an ANA staff that’s more aggressive on the issue than members.
Read More AdAge: ANA Raises Rebate Ruckus, but Do Its Members Care?

Digital media companies prey upon the misinterpretation of services and outcomes between advertisers and the agencies that get their ads where they need to be. In particular, the lack of technical knowledge possessed AND transferred between all parties mainly benefits digital media companies that keep serving ads on their large-scale content farms.
Read More Motherboard: Digital Media Is Kept Afloat By a Black Box of Confusion