Marketers Identify Tracking, Accountability, Transparency As Greatest Trust 'Weaknesses'


"Tracking," defined as benchmarking the value of a marketing organization's performance over time, was identified as the greatest weakness by the majority of executives participating in a survey taken by the Advertising Trust & Transparency Forum during the recent ProcureCon Marketing 2019 conference in Seattle, WA.

The survey, described as a "snap" poll of 29 marketing executives attending the event, was conducted by Trust Across America Trust Around The World (TAA-TAW) for the Advertising Transparency & Trust Forum. Respondents also identified "accountability" and "transparency" as big weaknesses, followed by "notice," which is defined as seeking out and listening to diverse perspectives.

"Integrity," defined as a marketing organization "doing what it says," was only identified as a weakness by a handful of respondents.

Forum Co-Chair Andrew Susman said the survey's goal was to help get a handle on how marketing executives view the strengths and weakness of various factors influencing trust inside their organizations.

Launched last year, the forum initially focused on creating a beta for an "advertising contract exchange," which has indexed the terms and conditions circulated by the Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Institute of Advertising Ethics.

Susman says the forum is taking a broader focus in its second year, including "raising the dialogue and connecting all constituencies" with "technologies of trust," including the procurement departments of major marketing organizations.

2 comments about "Marketers Identify Tracking, Accountability, Transparency As Greatest Trust 'Weaknesses'".
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  1. John Grono from GAP Research, December 2, 2019 at 3:33 p.m.

    A very interesting article.

    But caveats up front.   First, circa. n=30 is a very small sample, second the pool was self-selected (just those at the conference) and may not represent the wider marketing organisation industry.

    The stand-out result is that 59% nominated "tracking" as a weakness in marketing organisations, which was defined as "benchmarking the value of a marketing organization's performance over time".

    Isn't this, in essence, an admission that marketers are not longitudinally measuring their effectiveness sufficiently?  Or could this mean that they want someone to track and report their performance for them?

    Marketers should own the issue and take responsibility.

    Do they take it in-house (after all the marketer has the best access to the biggest data pool and deepest knowledge of the brand)?

    Do they get their media agency to do it for them (great access to lots of data, but could be compromised by their own results, and marketers have a tendency to churn agencies every few years)?

    Do they out-source it to specialist marketing data analysts (those that have no skin in the game such as media owners and media agencies)?

    There are options and choices.   There is a strong appetite.   So what is holding them back apart from making a decision and doing it?

  2. Barbara Kimmel replied, December 2, 2019 at 8:47 p.m.

    While not mentioned in the release, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World administered this survey at the "forum's" request.  Please contact Barbara Brooks Kimmel, Founder at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com for more information.

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