Canadian Association report shows media transparency important but elusive

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01/07/2014
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The Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA) recently held a forum on digital media transparency, verification and auditing, with marketers, agency and media representatives in attendance.

This forum followed on the heels of the ACA'S April/May 2014 Marketer's Pulse report, where over two-thirds of respondents ranked the issue of media transparency as 8 or more on a 10-point scale of importance. The report also showed that marketers know media transparency is an issue, but lack the knowledge to resolve it.

A recent article reported that ad revenue on the internet has, for the first time, surpassed ad revenue on TV in Canada. The common perception is that digital advertising is cost-efficient and can demonstrate measurable results. But whether that perception is in line with reality or not remains to be seen. Do marketers know the real cost of digital advertising if they don't know what questions to ask?

The ACA's Marketer's Pulse report revealed that almost 1 in 5 marketers do not know whether their agencies use trading desks. Furthermore, almost 75 per cent of marketers do not know if their agency trading desks practice arbitrage. Regarding agency volume bonuses (AVBs - deals that typically take the form of cash rebates offered by media owners to incent media buyers to spend more on their properties), their use is not as common a practice in Canada as it is overseas, but it does exist. The survey found that a surprising fifty per cent of marketers are aware of this practice in Canada, yet drastically few (13.5%) receive a portion of AVBs from their media agency.

To read the full report, visit the ACA website.


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