From AdAge on : “MedStar Health, a healthcare provider in the Maryland and D.C. region, has picked MDC Partners’ Doner as its agency of record. The agency will oversee strategy, creative and production for the provider, which has 10 hospitals, a home health agency and more than 300 urgent care, physician practice and other care sites. The company previously worked with AB&C Creative Intelligence. Bajkowski & Partners led the search.”
State Sales Tax Coming to Your Favorite eTailer
According to eMarketer, the US Supreme Court struck down a 26 year old law last week that permitted pure play online retailers to avoid charging sales tax if they weren’t physically operating from that state.
With online sales forecast to grow six points from 10% of all retail sales to 16% by yearend, or more than $525 billion in sales, traditional retailers have felt at a competitive disadvantage against etailers for the past two decades.
On the flip side, online merchants have argued that having to manage tax collection for 45 states would be unduly burdensome for small etailers.
Will this move truly level the playing field and drive people back to bricks and mortar shopping for purchases they’ve shifted to online? Probably not.
For more details on the court’s ruling and implications, visit eMarketer.
Media Trading Practices Under FBI Scrutiny
According to Campaign, the FBI may be reviewing media trading and transparency practices in the US, and focusing on specific media companies and any role played by executives.
The article reports that neither the FBI nor DoJ will confirm or deny any activity around the matter.
However, it’s been a widely held belief that some action by the DoJ would take eventually place after the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and its third party auditors issued its K2 Report (June 2016) claiming that media agencies in the US were, to varying degrees, pocketing media rebates and lacked sufficient transparency in their media buying practices.
According to an AdAge article published on the heels of the report’s release, K2 “cited 150 independent sources and ‘substantial evidence’ from 41 sources who reported direct knowledge of rebate deals occurring in the U.S. market. Of those sources, 34 indicated rebates were not disclosed or returned to advertisers.”
The report, however, does not name any agencies or media vendors, and according to the ANA, five of the six major holding companies at the time refused to make any of their executives available for interviews by its auditors.
The 4A’s leadership and some holding companies rebuked the report, citing a “lack of transparency” in the ANA’s investigative process as well as the report itself.
It’s been two years since the K2 report was released, yet according to a presentation by McKinsey at the ANA’s recent Financial Management Conference in Hollywood, Florida, the problems with media transparency and pocketing rebates is still pervasive despite a push by advertisers for greater transparency into the process.
Perhaps this is why larger advertisers are taking part or all of their media investment management in-house.
Bajkowski + Partners LLC is a leading consultancy providing services to marketing and procurement teams including building in-house media planning and programmatic as well as in-house creative and production operations.
65% of Marketers Moving Some or All of Programmatic Buying In-house
According to a study just released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), 65 percent of surveyed marketers making programmatic buys have either moved some or all of those functions in-house or are planning to doing so.
Key reasons cited include greater cost efficiencies and transparency, improved targeting and control of ads, shortened optimization time frames, and better focus on business objectives.
Not An Overnight Process
Taking programmatic in-house requires more than just appropriate staffing and isn’t accomplished overnight. In fact, it could take a year or more, and that’s after you develop your scope and implementation plan. And since you’ll need to hire the right talent, integrate multiple data sources, and build the right tech stack, you’ll need to prepare a detailed human and hard capital budget too.
Fortunately the IAB report provides a checklist to facilitate the process – plus there are external consultants to spearhead this initiative or advise along the way.
Bajkowski + Partners LLC is a leading consultancy providing services to marketing and procurement teams including building in-house media planning and programmatic as well as in-house creative and production operations. For more information, please visit our website.