| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Advertisers Lack Trust for Media Agencies | | A new report from media consultant ID Comms finds advertisers continue to look at their media agencies with "suspicion," according to MediaPost. The survey was conducted in May and polled 102 respondents, including client-side professionals with collective annual ad spending exceeding $20 billion. Some agency holding company execs were also polled. Both sides disagreed on the best ways to move to more transparency. "A clear scope of work, fairness in fees and payment terms and a great contract that protects both sides are the must-have tools for aligning agencies with advertisers and creating a productive, trusting working relationship," says Tom Denford, chief strategy officer at ID Comms. "However, it is clear from these results that there remains a huge variety of opinions on what should drive these beneficial behaviors and the other factors that might be in play." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: This report comes about a year after an Association of National Advertisers' report found that media agencies were accepting rebates from media companies for placing client ad dollars and the clients were not being told about it. At the time both sides pledged to work on creating more transparency and ending those practices if they existed, however from this latest survey, it seems like the major rift still exists between media agencies and their advertiser clients. | | A Take: MediaPost | | | | #2 Agencies Debate Cannes Relevancy | | Many agency executives are questioning whether the heavy expenditure necessary to attend the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has grown too costly, Ad Age reports. Quoting several agency executives both on the record and not for attribution, the report has them wondering whether the money spent on sending large groups of staffers to the resort city is worth it when the money could be instead used to make moves to fight off competition for clients against the growing threat from consultancies. Jason DeLand, a partner at media agency Anomaly says, "You can't argue that Cannes is irrelevant. The better question is, what role does it play credibly in an industry that is defined by much more than simply creative excellence. At its worst, it's a boondoggle. Somewhere in the middle it's a great place to connect and network and probably at the very top end it's a place to learn and get inspired." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Agencies love awards and hundreds of creative awards and recognition to creative campaigns are given out at the Festival. There has also been more of an effort to make the accompanying panels and programs more meaningful. But there are still massive numbers of cocktail parties and good times that can be construed as an unnecessary waste of time for most attendees. Plus agencies shell out lots of bucks as entry fees to compete in the creative categories and several new ones have recently been added. Clearly the industry, or each holding company, has to reevaluate its expenditures on the festival. | A Take: Ad Age
| | | | #3 Smirnoff Trolls Trump Amid Russian Investigations | | The Russian vodka brand had some fun over the weekend with an outdoor ad campaign that made light of the Trump administration's ongoing problems with investigations into its potential ties to Russia. Making light of President Trump's recent statement that he would testify under oath to Congress about a special prosecutor's probe into allegations that Russia meddled in the U.S. election, the outdoor signs showing a large bottle of Smirnoff vodka read: "Made in America," adding, "But We'd Be Happy To Talk About Our Ties To Russia Under Oath." Smirnoff sold in the U.S. is made at a plant in Illinois. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The ad buy was limited but it got widespread global publicity on social media. James Thompson, North America chief marketing and innovation officer for Smirnoff parent company Diageo tweeted, "Smirnoff's ad campaign is Brilliant. This is how you capitalize on current affairs." | Two Takes: Ad Age | Adweek
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| | 19 | | Percentage of U.S. teen internet users who prefer to video chat rather than hang out in person with their friends. Among those, 13% "somewhat prefer to video chat," while 6% "strongly prefer to video chat." Broken down by gender, 14% of female teens "somewhat prefer to video chat," while 8% "strongly prefer" it. Among male teens, 12% "somewhat prefer it," while 5% "strongly prefer" it. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | Stanley Cup Closer Paces NBC to Win | by Michael Malone
NBC won the ratings race Sunday, scoring a 1.8 rating in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 7 share. Megyn Kelly led into the Stanley Cup Final. Her Sunday Night newsmag did a 0.9, a tenth of a point better than its premiere. The hockey action, which saw the Pittsburgh Penguins finish off the Nashville Predators, did a 2.1, a 50% improvement from Game 5's rating. ABC was next at 1.2/5. The network aired game shows: The Celebrity Family Feud season premiere did a 1.5, Steve Harvey's Funderdome opened at 1.4 and $100,000 Pyramid did a 1.2. CBS rated a 0.9/4. After a 60 Minutes repeat, the Tonys telecast did a 0.9, with just over 6 million watching. Last year's show did a 1.4 with 8.73 million viewers. The craze around Hamilton helped last year. Fox was at 0.7/1. After repeated comedies, a new Bob's Burgers scored a 0.7, while American Grit premiered at 0.4. Among Spanish-language networks, Univision had a robust 0.8/3 and Telemundo a 0.3/1. | |
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| • SUSAN HOFFMAN was promoted to co-chief creative officer at Wieden + Kennedy. She joins the agency's other co-chief creative officer Collen DeCourcy, who was promoted to that role in October. Hoffman has been with the agency 32 years and was most recently executive creative director.
• ARTIE BULGRIN was named executive VP of strategy and insights at neuroscience research company MediaScience. He recently left ESPN after 21 years, most recently as senior VP, global research and analytics. He has also held executive roles at ABC and Nielsen.
• LISA GERSH, a co-founder of Oxygen Media and a former CEO at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, was named to the board of directors of comScore. Other new directors named include MARK HARRIS, chief financial officer of Hercules Capital; JACQUES KERREST, CFO of Intelsat; JOSHUA PEIREZ, president of Dun & Bradstreet; and SUSAN RILEY, former CEO of Eastern Outfitters, Children's Place, Abercrombie & Fitch and The Dial Corp. The new members increase the board size from seven to 12 members. • JEFFREY IMMELT will step down as chief executive officer of General Electric Co. effective Aug. 1. He has held the post for 16 years. He will be succeeded by JOHN FLANNERY, a 30-year veteran of GE, who currently oversees the company's health care unit. Immelt succeeded Jack Welch in 2001 and oversaw GE when it owned NBC and later NBCUniversal until it was sold to Comcast in 2013. | |
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