On this week’s #MediaSnack we devote the whole episode to reviewing the ANA’s Media Transparency Guidelines which were finally published this week after some delay. This draws to a conclusion the Association of National Advertisers’ year-long project to identify the scale of rebate and other non-transparent practices amongst US based media agencies and offer guidance to those advertisers (pretty much everyone) who may have been exposed to this practice or was entirely unaware of the risk.We look at the main points of ANA’s advice to marketers, including a strong suggestion that most marketers don’t currently have sufficient capabilities to oversee media management internally. They recommend appointing a Chief Media Officer, someone internally who can champion the role of media within the company, have more accountability for media as an investment for growth and someone who can define the relationship with the agency beyond just buying cheap media. We expect that the guidelines will now trigger many brands into action to upgrade their media skills and capabilities, to take back some control of media management from their agency if they have overly delegated this away. This, as regular viewers will know, is what ID Comms have been recommending for many years; marketers need to have control (ANA calls is “primacy”) over their own media investments. Those brands which do not will be at a serious disadvantage to those who decide to do the hard work to take back some control. For any brand looking to understand how to upgrade their own media behaviours, start by reviewing ID Comms 7Ts principles, the 7 media behaviours of successful marketers. This simplifies the major tasks and responsibilities of the Chief Media Officer, allowing them to benchmark their organisation and create a roadmap for improvements over time. One pleasant surprise as part of the ANA’s release was the inclusion of a media agency services contract. A template to guide marketers in creating the best media agency contract. This is a great asset, built on the good work that ISBA (the UK's marketer trade body) executed earlier in 2016. ISBA created a best practice media agency contract, ID Comms was heavily involved in the drafting of the contract and supporting guidelines so we can attest to its quality and robustness. The ANA have used ISBA’s template as a basis for their own version for US members. In our review, we believe that the ANA contract template is of best practice standard, but will be hard for advertisers to implement unless they have sufficient negotiation leverage over agencies to get them to accept these terms. That’s the next challenge for marketers, how to put all this stuff into practice. We certainly welcome the publication of the ANA's Media Transparency guidelines. We discuss that if advertisers adopt these guidelines then they will certainly be in a better position than they were 12 months ago. In that sense, the ANA have achieved their goal and done what they said they were going to do, the guidelines are sensible, reasonable, considered and fair. We highly commend the ANA for the rigorous process they have undertaken. We hope that, at the conclusion of the ANA media transparency investigations, this will draw a line under this difficult and toxic chapter for the industry and that advertisers and their agencies can build more productive relationships together for the future.If you have any responsibility of your company’s media investments, work with a media agency or work at a media agency, you need to be very well versed on this project. Happy reading, let us know what you think in the comments or email us at ID Comms.
