CANNES — Marketers need to define their agency relationships clearly, outlining the acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, and address any gaps in expectations, says Lou Paskalis, Senior VP, Enterprise Media Executive at Bank of America, in this interview with Beet.TV. He spoke about the recent Association of National Advertisers’ report on kickbacks. He serves on the transparency committee at the ANA.
The report found that many U.S. advertising agencies had been engaging in “non-transparent business practices” that included taking rebates from media companies, and in some cases these rebates amounted to up to 20% of media spend.
“It was a wakeup call for marketers to make sure our contracts are clear about our expectations of our agencies and their holding companies, and the opportunity is to set the bar clearly moving forward,” he tells us. “At the end of the day, the ANA has done a good thing by uncovering these potential issues and I applaud them, and I’ve had great conversations with my agencies to know where we stand.”
Marketers should understand what’s in the report, analyze their agency agreements, and update their own with their agencies, he adds.
