The ANA Report Considered

The report is about transparency in media placements in the USA People who it must be assumed knew what they were talking about were anonymously interviewed as is very common The findings have been released Either respondents were uniformly mistaken or there39s something in what they had to sayThe two key players namely the agencies and the advertisers do not come out of the report too well The agencies because they39ve been found not to be any too transparent the clients because they drove fees ever lower and then agreed to contracts that in effect let the agencies do whatever they wantedIt39s a little strange that the holding companies have expressed so much pained surprise given that on at least two comparatively recent occasions AdAge has reported on practices subsequently highlighted within the K2 reportThe ANA report is not only about rebates it also speaks in 441 of the difficulties arising when agencies hold equity in supplier companiesAs reported in AdAge Laura Desmond then CEO of Publicis company Starcom held a board position at Tremor Video from January 2012 until resigning her post in September 2013 Her role on Tremor39s Board had been vetted and approved by PublicisIn 2012 18 of Tremor39s revenues came from Starcom clients again according to AdAge 18 seems a big numberThen there areamp160rebates dressed up as service agreements considered by the ANA in 4231 This is the practice of quotsellingquotamp160the supplier research or some other service at a hugely inflated price amp160in fact so inflated often the buyer never gets to see any report or indeed any benefitIn June 2015 AdAge reported two adtech vendors being quotofferedquotamp160this exact quotservicequotamp160by Havas One of the quotbuyersquotamp160reported that no service was ever forthcoming from this arrangement involving a Havas company in SpainThe Cog Blog in March 2014 reported on WPP buying the ad network 247 and putting it in with their thentrading desk Xaxis thus putting Xaxis in the position if it chose to do so of buying from itself Not that anyone would have known as Xaxis then considered it unnecessary to tell clients where it was placing their digital budgetsBack then in February 2014 Bill Duggan from the ANA wrote quotOur business has historically been built on trust and relationships But this transparency crisis is causing trust to break down and ultimately that will affect the relationships marketers have with their agencies and the mediaquotThe press focus on the ANA report to date has been on rebates But this is a far more nuanced and complex issue than did quotAquotamp160take cash from quotBquotThere39s the whole issue of influencing plans If an agency has a volume deal with a preferred supplier the agency39s planners are told to use those suppliers regardless of what39s best for the clientThis happens everyone knows it happens and it39s very tough to spot unless someone talks as happened when K2 and before them Jon Mandel interviewed those at the heart of the processThis is a serious issue as it gets right to the heart of undermining trust If your agency recommends Title A or Website B how can you be sure that they39re doing it because it39s best for you or because it39s best for them More significant is if as is widely believed happens an agency proposes digital channels on the basis that they make a far higher margin that way regardless of whether or not the channel works for the advertiserNo holding company has yet come out and said their buys don39t influence their plansAt least there is one executive from a holding company who has contributed a named piece to the discussion even if some of it is by the author39s own admission at least in the edit on LinkedIn somewhat selfservingGroupM39s Rob Norman published a pieceamp160here on MediaVillagecom pointing out the investments made by his company in adtechamp160and data analytics He also made the valid point that some companies including GroupM have moved the game forward when it comes to such online topics as viewability and verificationSuggesting that WPPGroupM have made these investments for any reason other than because they39re good for WPPGroupM is somewhat disingenuous but no less useful for that It is true that GroupM has pushed further than most to try to understand the complexity of the market even if one might take the cynical view that they have in part created and have certainly benefited from the complexityRob doesn39t pretend to address the fundamental issue of transparency raised by the ANAamp160rather he suggests that the balanced view should take account of the efforts WPP and others have put into steering advertisers through a time of great change He39s right to make the point even if no one has suggested otherwiseLast week we said here that collaboration and discussion was the way forward not throwing around remarks likeamp160quotMy CEO wants ANA CEO Bob Liodice39s headquotamp160a charming comment made anonymously oh the irony by a holding company executiveYou might take issue with some of Rob Norman39s argument amp160You might think that he39s deflecting the discussion away from the real issues raised by the ANA39s research amp160But what cannot be criticized is his tone of voice He is trying to advance the discussion More holding company media agency managers should follow his leadThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers amp160amp160

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The ANA Report Considered

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Brian Jacobs

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