• by Joe Mandese , 10 hours ago

Let me begin by saying I truly admire Acadia's business model and believe it is something all advertisers and agencies should consider. In an age of not-always-so-transparent media planning and buying, it's the right thing to do. It's the reason MediaPost named Acadia our independent agency of the year in 2023.

This column is not about the substance of what Acadia does. It's about something it does that lacks it: launching microsites purporting to be important media planning and buying exposes, but which are really just thinly veiled credentials pitches for Acadia's business model.

And I do mean thin.

Both the itsyourrebate.com site launched today, as well as a similar one -- saynotoprincipalmediabuying.com, launched in November 2024 -- are just single pages saying what most of us already know about some of the industry's less-than-transparent business practices, with links to trade press coverage fawning over Acadia's alternative approach.

The practice is far from new. In the old days it was called "publishing by press release," a practice in which a company issues a press release asserting some important news or revelation, but ultimately is just publishing a press release asserting it.

Over the years, I've seen more than my fair share of this practice. Often it is done by third-party research aggregators publishing some new report or sensational finding to generate clicks to a new report they are selling.

While publishing-by-microsite is not entirely new -- it's often used by political campaigns and advocacy groups to rally around a candidate, issue or cause -- I haven't noticed it used by advertising and media services agencies until Acadia came along.

I understand what they are trying to do, but I think it is disingenuous for an agency that claims to be all about transparency to be doing something that is nothing more than directing people to a webpage making a case for its business model.

Don't get me wrong -- I think the issues Acadia is highlighting via the tactic are real. I just think its efforts would have more value if they put some substance behind it. Instead of using it as a PR stunt to generate press coverage about an agency refunding rebate checks from the media to its clients.

I can almost see the "photo op" now.

Full disclosure: I was pitched in advance on covering this as news, but took a pass so I could write this column instead.