ANA invites 4A’s to its Masters of Marketing conference to discuss media transparency disagreements
Following the 4A’s rejection of the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) recently-issued media transparency guidelines, the ANA has invited the 4A’s board of directors to its upcoming Masters of Marketing conference in Orlando to “have an open dialogue” about the matter.
ANA
The invitation comes as the two trade bodies continue to disagree over the best course of action for media transparency issues that have plagued the industry ever since former Mediacom chief executive Jon Mandel stated last year that rebates are widespread in the US ad market.
After the ANA released its K2 Intelligence report earlier this summer – which stated that “non-transparent business practices,” including rebates, are pervasive in the US media buying landscape – it then released a set of guidelines for marketers to help them navigate agency relationships and recommended that brands create chief media officer roles to oversee “potential conflicts of interest.”
Yet the 4A’s has rejected both the report and guidelines. When the K2 Intelligence report initially came out, the 4A’s called it “anonymous, inconclusive, and one-sided” while WPP, IPG and Publicis all spoke out against it as well. When the ANA released its guidelines in the Ebiquity/Firm Decisions Report last month – which also included a recommended contract template - president and CEO of the 4A’s Nancy Hill stated that the organization believes “contractual negotiations are best left between you and your clients” and advised 4A’s members to instead look at the 4A’s Transparency Guiding Principles of Conduct if they have transparency questions or concerns.
The back-and-forth between the two organizations started last April when the two formed a joint task force to look into the accusations made by Mandel. Yet the joint task force disbanded when the ANA decided to hire investigative consultancy K2 Intelligence and Ebiquity/Firm Decisions to look into the issue, leading the 4A’s to release its own set of media transparency guidelines, which the ANA said “fail to adequately reflect the best interests of marketers.”
The ANA Masters of Marketing Conference begins on Wednesday, October 19, 2016 at 12:00pm, runs until Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 12:00pm, and is hosted in Orlando, Florida. More details here.