Agencies are still a step ahead of those advertisers trying to find out how they secretly profit from media budgets.
Read More Digiday: ‘It’s like a game of whack-a-mole’: Rebates Persist in Ad Buying
Category: Understanding the Issue
ANA: Trust and Transparency in Media and Marketing
The 2016 ANA report on media transparency was a welcome and long-overdue wake-up call for the global advertiser community. By highlighting the existence of nontransparent trading practices in the U.S. media market — by most measures the largest and most sophisticated in the world — the report focused many national and global advertisers’ attention on the issue of transparency in media. It was the first stepping stone on the journey to more transparent media trading.
Read More ANA: Trust and Transparency in Media and Marketing
Ad Age: The Hidden Truth About Media Rebates: Agencies Are Paying Settlements, But They’Re Not Being Disclosed
The general counsel of the Association of National Advertisers says there have been settlements stemming from audits of media agency contracts. The CEO of the 4A’s, the leading U.S. agency organization, says nearly a hundred audits have taken place, but agencies have yet to give any money back.
The New York Times: The Online Ad World Is Murky. A Group of Companies Wants to Fix That.
A group of 16 companies — including leading ad tech firms, ad agencies and publishers — is trying to help clean up the murky world of digital advertising.
Read More The New York Times: The Online Ad World Is Murky. A Group of Companies Wants to Fix That.
MediaPost Agency Daily: ANA Finds Rebates Still A Major Client-Agency Trust Issue
Three years ago the ANA released a major study on transparency and the agency-client relationship that found the practice of taking undisclosed rebates — agencies taking rebates from media companies without disclosing the details to clients — to be much more widespread in the U.S. than previously thought.
Read More MediaPost Agency Daily: ANA Finds Rebates Still A Major Client-Agency Trust Issue
ANA: Issues that Contribute to the Breakdown of Trust in the Advertising Ecosystem
The ANA launched the Trust Consortium in partnership with our outside counsel, Reed Smith, to help address the issue of trust between marketers and the advertising ecosystem.
Read More ANA: Issues that Contribute to the Breakdown of Trust in the Advertising Ecosystem
Digiday: ‘We’re both playing the game’: Confessions of a Procurement Director on Agency Rebates
The lucrative but sometimes opaque way media owners give rebates to agencies in exchange for larger media budgets may be legal in the U.K. when disclosed, but that hasn’t stopped them being blamed for advertising’s slump into a murky black box.
The Drum: Why The Independence of Media and Measurement is Key to Transparency in Marketing
As the pressure for marketing ROI increases among advertisers, they are demanding deeper insights into how agencies, publishers, and ad-tech partners spend on their behalf.
MediaPost: It’s Time For Complete Transparency In Digital Ad Data Rebates
Today’s column runs the risk of alienating folks I sometimes do business with — but it’s about an issue we all need to address and resolve.
Read More MediaPost: It’s Time For Complete Transparency In Digital Ad Data Rebates
Campaign: FBI Subpoenas Louis Vuitton Owner LVMH in US Media Buying Probe
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a subpoena to French luxury group LVMH as part of its probe into media buying transparency in the US, Campaign has learned.
Read More Campaign: FBI Subpoenas Louis Vuitton Owner LVMH in US Media Buying Probe