Around the Net

Jon Mandel To ANA: Agency Media Kickbacks Are Pervasive, Systemic

Agency media kickbacks took center stage at the Association of National Advertisers’ media conference Thursday, as a former Madison Avenue media-buying heavyweight went public with allegations indicating the practice is far more systemic than generally believed.

Jon Mandel, a long-time media buyer at Grey Advertising who rose to become CEO of GroupM’s Mediacom unit before jumping over to the data and analytics side at Nielsen and more recently as CEO of PrecisionDemand, said publicly what many people acknowledge in private, off-the-record conversations. While he didn’t name any names or cite specific examples, Mandel presented an especially damning case that undisclosed rebates and outright kickbacks from media are pervasive across Madison Avenue.

ANA Group Executive Vice President Bill Duggan also indicated that the association’s Media Transparency Task Force asked Mandel to study the issue and has been working with members to expose the practices and make them more transparent for clients to see.

Read the whole story at Advertising Age »

Next story loading loading..