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Marketers who have been pouring huge sums into digital advertising are wrestling with several recent events that add to a troubling picture: some are finding they can’t be sure how well that money was spent or what they’ve received in return for it.
Read More The Wall Street Journal: Doubts About Digital Ads Rise Over New Revelations
Tokyo-based advertising giant Dentsu has acknowledged that it overcharged more than 100 clients after it conducted a month-long investigation into its own financial records.
Agencies are calling for increased transparency around ad buys and time spent with media, following Facebook’s and Dentsu’s admission of miscalculation of metrics. Both apologized and are taking steps to correct the situation.
Read More MediaPost: Agencies Want Increased Transparency For Ad Metrics
The need for greater transparency and accountability hit the advertising industry Friday after Facebook confessed that it miscalculated how long site visitors watch video ads and Dentsu admitted to overcharging clients for digital media services by placing fewer ads than promised.
Read More MediaPost: Miscalculations From Facebook, Dentsu Could Force Ad Industry Change
WHAT’S A FEW DECIMAL POINTS: Marketers and ad agencies are learning that their campaigns on Facebook may not have been nearly as effective as they thought. For two years, Facebook overestimated the average amount of time people spent watching video content on its platform. The social media giant disclosed in its online advertiser help center that the key metric was accidentally artificially inflated by only including videos viewed for more than three seconds. Facebook told ad buying agency Publicis Media that it likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by a whopping 60% to 80%, according to a letter Publicis sent to clients, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The miscalculation means marketers may have misjudged the performance of their video ads as well as decisions to move budgets into Facebook, while publishers who post videos on the platform are also affected. Facebook’s solution? A new name for a new metric for what was meant to be measured in the first place. Maybe it’s time for the internet’s so-called walled gardens to finally allow true third-party verification of their data.
TOKYO: Dentsu, the leading Japanese agency, has admitted to “inappropriate operations” in some digital media trading carried out for clients, with initial reports suggesting that as many as 100 could be affected, including car giant Toyota.
A key finding in the work the Association of National Advertisers, or ANA, has been doing on the media transparency issue over the past two years is that the contracts between marketers and their media agencies are at the very heart of the controversy.
Read More AdAge: Op-Ed: Advertisers Are Overmatched in Agency Contract Negotiations
When Dentsu Inc. proactively informed longtime client Toyota of “irregularities” related to some digital media business transactions this week, the Association of National Advertisers applauded.
Read More AdAge: ANA Applauds Dentsu, Calls Major Marketers’ Audits ‘Appropriate’
Agencies that don’t comply with the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ (4As) Transparency Guiding Principles of Conduct (TGPC) will risk losing their memberships.
Read More AdExchanger: The 4As Is Cracking Down On Transparency, On Its Own Terms
The American 4A’s agency trade body is still at loggerheads with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), pulling out of an ANA panel on ‘transparency’ at Advertising Week in New York next week, preferring to do its own thing at the chat fest.
Read More More About Advertising: ANA dispute with agencies worsens as 4A’s goes it alone