Apparently DOJ Not Finished With U.S. Media Buying Investigation

Posted on March 26, 2019February 10, 2021 by Bajkowski + Partners

According to an article published by AdAge on March 25, 2019, the Department of Justice had impaneled a federal grand jury, enabling the U.S. Attorney to issue a subpoena to an unidentified “large marketer” for its media records.

This comes as a surprise given December 2018 reporting by both AdAge and Adweek that the DOJ had cleared five major holding companies.

The FBI’s investigation into U.S. media buying and transparency practices began last April as a result of a 2016 media transparency report, also known as the K2 Intelligence Report, released by the Association of National Advertisers.

The K2 report cited serious problems that went against media buying best practices and agency-client contracts.

This week’s AdAge article cites concerns among ANA member marketers over agency backlash and blacklisting should their participation in the K2 and DOJ investigations become public.

Apparently the DOJ has been working with a non-redacted version of the K2 report which contains the names of more than 40 sources that participated in the ANA-sponsored investigation.

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.

Five Major Holding Companies Cleared in DOJ Investigation

Posted on December 7, 2018December 11, 2019 by Bajkowski + Partners

According to AdAge and Adweek, the Department of Justice closed its two year investigation into video production and post-production practices against five of the largest ad agency holding companies – IPG, MDC Partners, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP.

Apparently the DOJ has declined to comment on the status of its investigation which focused on whether ad agencies were awarding production business to their in-house departments over third-party providers in a ‘rigged bidding’ process.

The DOJ is still investigating media buying practices among the agencies, driven by the ANA K2 report citing serious problems that went against best practices and agency-client contracts.

Agency Transparency Issues, Audits and Reviews Projected to Increase Sharply in 2017

Posted on December 12, 2016February 10, 2021 by Bajkowski + Partners

Adding fuel to the fire

The gap in client-agency relationships widened when, in March 2015, allegations by former Mediacom CEO Jon Mandel of widespread U.S. media agency kickbacks during the Association of National Advertisers Media Leadership Conference led to an eight-month investigation conducted by K2 Intelligence for the ANA. The resulting K2 report, issued in early 2016, generated criticism on the reports validity by the agency community but got the attention of U.S. marketing and procurement professionals alike.

While no one will say whether this issue drove the spate of high profile media agency reviews over the past year, the timing is certainly hard to ignore. And it was definitely the reason behind some assignments Continue reading→

Ad Agencies Under Investigation for Rigged Production Bidding Practices

Posted on December 7, 2016February 10, 2021 by Bajkowski + Partners

According to recent articles by The Wall Street Journal and Advertising Age, the Department of Justice has launched a probe into advertising agency practices around the production bidding process. The inquiry focuses on whether or not agencies are engaging in unfair business practices in order to award more work to their own in-house production departments – potentially violating antitrust laws which prohibit price-fixing and bid-rigging.

In this alleged rigged bidding process, according to the Journal, agencies are purported to seek inflated bids Continue reading→