Category Archives: Media Transparency

data integrity and insights

Global Media Measurement Initiative Launched

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Alignment on media measurement, transparency and contract compliance have long been a navigation challenge for global marketers.

What’s considered a ‘best practice’ in media measurement and management varies between regions and can be also be country-specific.

Despite the irregularities identified in the 2016 K2 report, it seems very little has changed – perhaps until now.

A new global initiative was just launched to develop global standards and best practices for media measurement.

According to the Association of Canadian Advertisers‘ press release, “The‘Cross Media Working Group’ as it has been named… aims to find cross-industry consensus on key global principals for measurement, with broadcasters, digital platforms and measurement companies also involved in the initiative.”

Members of this alliance, which is being led by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), is “comprised of global advertisers EA, Mastercard, P&G and Unilever, as well as advertising associations from around the world: the ACA (Canada), the ANA (US), ISBA (UK), OWM (Germany), Union des Marques (France) and the Media Rating Council. Key digital platforms and publishers including Facebook, Google and Twitter are also participating in the initiative, as are leading broadcasters.”

As agency relationship management consultants to global marketers, we are hopeful that the group will achieve alignment on media management best practices quickly.

To read the full details of this global media measurement initiative visit acaweb.ca
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down the drain

U.S. Media Buying Probe May Ensnare Marketers

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Ever since former Mediacom CEO, Jon Mandel, publicly alleged four years ago at a forum held by the Association of National Advertisers that media buying agencies were engaged in non-transparent behaviors in order to retain discounts and rebates that belonged to advertisers, investigations into such practices have not receded.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigation, which has been underway for nearly a year, just recently led to the subpoena of records from one major advertiser.

Until now, attention within the industry has focused on behaviors among media buying agencies, real or imagined, but today’s article in AdAge adds a cautionary warning to marketers:  some of you may want to lawyer up.

Why?

If investigators can prove any brand-side marketers approved of, encouraged or willfully ignored misconduct by their media agencies, they could be facing criminal charges. And someone on the agency side may strike a plea deal in exchange for implicating a client.

According to the ANA’s website, the purpose of its recently released whitepaper, Media Buying 2018 – Transparency at a Crossroads , co-developed with legal firm ReedSmith, is to “provide a historical perspective of the transparency issues and to outline the options that advertisers have to cooperate or not cooperate with the FBI.”

If you’re involved with media buying, either client or agency side, you may want to seek advice from your own counsel – both corporate and personal.

Bajkowski + Partners LLC is a leading consultancy providing services to marketing and procurement teams in the areas of agency relationship management, agency search, process audits, contract and SOW development and audits, and other marketing operations related areas. For more information, please visit our website.

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it all adds up

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

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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.

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Five Major Holding Companies Cleared in DOJ Investigation

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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.

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