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Advertisers call for media budget transparency amidst breakdown in trust

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By John Glenday, Reporter

April 28, 2016 | 2 min read

Britain’s biggest advertisers are leading calls for marketing services providers to introduce greater transparency in their media budgets to outline precisely how money is being spent.

Advertisers call for media budget transparency

The Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, whose 450 members include the likes of Land Rover, Nationwide and Tesco, complained that its clients were increasingly uneasy about the opaque business practices through which the likes of WPP, Publicis, IPG, Dentsu-Aegis, Havas and Omnicom generate increasing profits.

In an effort to get itself back on the front foot the ISBA has issued its members with a standard contract in an effort to bolster their cumulative negotiating strength.

ISBA director Debbie Morrison said: “We’re at a tipping point, we’ve got to do something. I don’t believe that [the media agencies] have got the best interests of their clients at heart anymore.”

For their part agencies warn that the new contract is ‘one-sided’ with the IPA, the equivalent trade body representing agencies, advising its members not to agree to the new contracts.

Paul Bainsfair, director-general of the IPA, said: “… since the contract has been developed by ISBA for advertisers and solely from their perspective, it is highly likely that it will not be even-handed.

“If this is the case we will not be recommending that IPA member agencies agree to use it.”

A breakdown in trust between advertisers and agencies centres on the receipt of undisclosed rebates from media companies that are not passed onto clients.

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