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.

And what a beneficial game it is for agency holding companies, all of which have increased their share price over the last five years. Sir Martin Sorrell has delivered such enormous growth for WPP that he has earned himself just over 70 million pounds in income and bonuses during 2015 alone. Only one third of his shareholders voted against that package; two thirds are clearly very happy with the finances of the company. As Jon Mandel, former MediaCom CEO, famously said in 2015: “Have you ever wondered why fees to agencies have gone down, and yet the declared profits to these agencies are up?”

Read the full MediaPost article here.