According to
Advertising Age's Michael Learmonth, Group M Interaction CEO John Montgomery "laid down the law" when he said, recently: "All data generated or collected by the Media Company in
performing under this Agreement shall be deemed 'Confidential Information' of Agency/Advertiser." This, which was first reported
here at MediaPost, means that Group M is saying that all the data
collected by Group M belongs to Group M, not its publisher clients. "It's to ensure that data is confidential and cannot be accessed by our competitors," Montgomery said of the new agreement. "It's a
loophole we wanted to close."
However, publishers contacted by
Ad Age said they feel like the move is a power play made by a powerful media-buying agency at a time when publishers
are especially vulnerable. "The broad strokes on this are not acceptable no matter how bad the economy is," said one unnamed publisher who was briefed with the terms. "It's scary."
As
Learmonth says, "Group M's move is part of a broader realization in the online-advertising industry that the consumer data being collected by advertisers and publishers is in many cases more valuable
than the advertising itself." This is because each campaign yields important data. The bigger the campaign, the more data, and the more power the owner has. With this move, it looks like WPP is
looking take on the likes of Google and Microsoft with their massive ad networks.
Read the whole story at Advertising Age »