• by December 16, 2005

Several years ago, I worked on an assignment for a client that was both confused and unhappy with its media buys. It seems that the buys "posted" well--or, in today's parlance, passed the audit--but still, there was something that just didn't seem right. It turned out that the client's executives changed their minds about media budgets, schedules and buys an average of fifty times a month. Each time the plan would be re-cast and the buy would be re-purchased. Of course the changes were reflected in the specifications for the buys, so in the end, the audit looked pretty good because it complied with the specs and the client seemingly got what it wanted. The agency became so accustomed to this rework habit that it had long since stopped warning the client about the consequential inefficiencies.

Audits do not address all of the factors that influence a media buy. They were never intended to. They can answer the question, "Did what I bought actually run?"--but they do not address the media's return on investment on many other levels. Today's audit is the grandchild of the old post-evaluation that originated in the late sixties by major agencies as a defense against what they saw as the fiduciary and technical media offenses of the first crop of media buying services. In fact, the word audit is a poor description of the process. It implies that media buys are transactions, when in fact they are part of a larger process and influenced by many "hidden" factors. In the case of our conflicted client described above, re-work caused inefficiencies on several levels. The continually repurchased media buy became 19 percent less efficient, and labor-based agency compensation escalated another 16 percent. Media audits, while they might suggest something strange is happening, do not uncover such hidden irregularities.

Media audits are a form of compliance audit. They compare what ran with a set of specifications. But audit can also mean a systematic check or assessment, especially of efficiency or effectiveness. The word "assessment" cuts closer to the bone, since it is a judgment about something based on an understanding of the situation. Assessments address hidden issues like re-work, by putting audits in a broader context.

Let me put it a different way. There is a geological term called the angle of repose. It is the slope or angle at which loose careening cohesiveless material will come to rest. Think of a load of sand, rocks or numbers crashing downhill, each ending up in piles. An audit will tell you how much stuff came down and how fast, but only a real understanding of the whole environment will reveal at what point it all stabilizes and comes to rest, how high the piles are, and at what angle they repose to the ground. I like that; audits, assessments and the angle of repose.

So I prefer to have a full understanding of the environment, to get at the behavior behind the audit numbers. I believe that there is more to be gained or lost in the process of how the work gets done and the strength of the strategy, than in the buy itself, which often carries cost and audience guarantees. Do I believe in audits? Sure. Do I believe in assessing the situation in a broader context? Absolutely.

Assessments are multi-faceted approaches to solving problems. They are not a single event, like an audit. They address many issues to try to gain as full an understanding of how to fix what is going wrong and to add more value. They are forward-looking and improvement-seeking by nature. The first step is to find out what the broader situation is now, by surveying client and agency practices and performing diagnostic interviews to find out how work is getting done on both sides. This, together with the audit, becomes the benchmark against which future improvement is measured.

Next is due diligence of the collection of material and data related to plans, buys and instructions, between the client and agency. The results of diligence, diagnostics and the survey are rolled up and compared with relevant and codified "best practices" in the marketplace. The results of this kind of analysis can effect real change in efficiencies and behavior on many important levels.

So we are not against audits. They are a very important piece of the solution process. The audits just need to be seated in a broader context of work practices and best practices. Unless that is done, the results of the audit have less value and are much more difficult to effectively socialize and integrate into the business life of the client and agency.