CANNES – The Association of National Advertisers made its first trip to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this month with a mission: to induce global CMO’s to embrace and participate in its CMO Masters Circle pro-growth initiative.
As Masters Circle was being established in the U.S., the ANA “started to recognize fundamental flaws in the way we manage ourselves,” says the organization’s CEO, Bob Liodice. “We’ve lost sight of being able to pursue brand and creative excellence. We’ve lost sight of our efficiency and our infrastructure,” Liodice says in this interview with Beet.TV.
The 12 pillars of the Masters Circle are based in large part by the fact that about half of all Fortune 500 companies have declining revenues and after-tax profits, according to Liodice.
“We can interpret that lots of ways. But in many ways, it’s an indictment on our marketing system. It could be one of the reasons why CMO tenure is as short as it is.”
The 12 pillars of Masters Circle are:
Advocacy; Brand and creative excellence; Brand safety; Digital media supply chain; Future growth; Gender equality; Inclusiveness; Measurement; Media transparency; Organizing; Purpose; and Talent development.
“To be a transformative force, you have to focus in on the one or two significant issues perhaps in all of the areas and attempt to make a difference with them,” Liodice says.
He cites as an example the joint effort by the ANA, 4A’s and IAB to combat digital advertising fraud under the auspices of the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG).
“What we needed to do was create an institutional presence that allowed for confidence to grow in the entire digital supply chain that we could attack fraud at its roots.”
As a result, research has indicated that ads that go through the TAG certification process show an 84% improvement in fraud rates versus the general market.
“That’s the type of progress we’re looking to make,” says Liodice.
This video is part of a series produced by Beet.TV at Cannes Lions 2018 about advertising accountability presented by Mediaocean. Please find more videos from this series here.
