• MediaVilage, Tuesday, June 7, 2016 7:11 AM

Writing on the MediaVillage blog, ad veteran Brian Jacobs says media agencies are getting much of the blame for transparency issues in the industry. He goes further, writing: "Digital advertising is generally so poor that consumers go out of their way to avoid it. So-called precision targeting starts to get close to an invasion of privacy. Fingers are being pointed, mud is being slung. How on earth did we get into this mess? Although there are many candidates to blame from client procurement, to trade bodies and even the trade press, much of the mud being slung around seems to be sticking to the media agencies and more specifically the multi-agency holding company traders. It seems that holding companies' demands for ever higher margins from the media guys to counter-balance poor performances elsewhere have tempted a few of them to put their own interests ahead of those of their clients. Agencies have always been in a position to keep rebates from media vendors. In some parts of the world this was understood by clients and even encouraged; in others a blind eye has been turned; in still others it has always been seen as a sin. Now is not the moment to discuss cultural differences in attitudes towards payments." Jacobs is founder/director of Enreach, a supplier of advanced audience analytics to premium publishers and Optisca, a U.K.-based consultancy focused on measuring, monitoring and quantifying reputation for company boards.

Read the whole story at MediaVilage »