Bill Duggan, VP ejecutivo de Grupo de ANA
Bill Duggan, Group EVP at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) opened the ANA 18th Multicultural and Diversity conference this Sunday 9th at the J.W. Marriott in Los Angeles. He announced with delight that this was the second biggest number of attendees they’ve had. The first topic discussed at the event was the state of the industry’s transparency. “Transparency in transactions with media agencies has important multicultural implications and investigating about transparency is one of the most relevant efforts of ANA in the last years” he highlighted. “Five or six years ago we began to listen about transparency issues between clients and agencies. Since then we have been investigating.” In 2015, ANA hired K2 Intelligence and ebiquity to lead the investigation. “Non- transparent practices were found and confirmed, such as monetary agreements with suppliers without the client knowing, and other problem behaviors. This behavior is not only limited to a specific type of agency or media, in digital it’s easier, but it happens in all media” Duggan said. ANA suggests several strategies to solve the problem: Establish a relationship based on principles with the agency; review contracts, because the rights to audit are key, and be able to select the audit firm, and be owners of their data and of the technology used under their name. “Advertisers should be more responsible with their media agency and take an active part in following up their work” Duggan concluded.