Association of National Advertisers warns agencies criminal charges could follow investigation into dodgy agency practices. Journalists freed from Tanzania imprisonment. Disney takes major hit with Vice Media. BBC launches fight back against fake news. UK online ad spend continues to rise. More money on martech than people. Mad&Women founder on femtising versus femwashing.
Association of National Advertisers warns agencies criminal charges could follow investigation into dodgy agency practices
The US’ Association for National Advertisers, which in 2016 released a shattering report in which it found rebates and other non-transparent practices were “pervasive”, has warned that agencies still engaged in suspect ad-buying practices could be “exposed to liability for wrongdoing such as wire fraud and racketeering”, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Federal prosecutors were now investigating such practices, the ANA said in a new white paper on the subject, and said criminal charges could be brought against the media buying agencies and those executives and employees who were involved. It said federal crimes likely at the centre of the investigation were mail and wire fraud, conspiracy and racketeering.
The ANA represents big advertisers such as Procter & Gamble Co. PG 0.08% , General Motors Co. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Read the full report on the Wall Street Journal.
SA journalists freed from Tanzania imprisonment
The talk of the African media world this week has been the imprisonment of South African journalists Angela Quintal and Muthoki Mumo.
They were arrested for allegedly contradicting their visa regulations, though this could just have been a cover as part of Tanzania’s media crackdown.
The pair were in the country on a reporting mission for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and they have since been released from custody.
For more information, published by iAfrica, click here.
Disney takes major hit with Vice Media
In another sign of trouble for entertainment giant Disney, the company has written down $157mn of its investment in Vice Media.
The news comes a day after Vice revealed it is condensing its websites and freezing hiring as it struggles with a tough digital media environment.
Back in 2015, Disney invested $400mn into Vice, which started as a punk magazine in Montreal, Canada, but has since grown into a vast media company.
Financial Times has more information, here.
BBC launches fightback against fake news
A major focus on media literacy and a series of workshops and debates are central to the campaign,
In-depth research has also been conducted around why fake news is spread so readily, with the results being released shortly.
A documentary, ‘Fake Me’, will also be released, showing how far young people will go in pursuit of social media perfection.
Financial Express has more information. Click here.
UK online ad spend continues to rise
The UK’s digital sector is continuing to attract revenue, with online ad growth in the country still rising, continuing to exceed expectations.
The rise helped deliver a 20th consecutive quarter of market growth in the April-to-June period.
Another upwards revision to the full year forecasts carried in the quarterly Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report, has also been made.
UK ad spend increased 6.4% year-on-year to reach £5.6bn in Q2 2018.
To read more, published by WARC, click here.
More money on martech than people
More money is being spent on marketing technology than on people, according to a survey of senior executives in the US and the UK. Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey 2018-2019, published Thursday, will take 29 percent of expenditure in 2018, compared to 22 percent in 2017, while staff costs will account for 24 percent of budgets, down from 27 percent last year.
Gartner also reported that 23 percent of budgets will go on external agencies, down from 25 percent last year and paid media spend (buying advertising space) will also account for 23 percent this year, down from 25 percent.
CMOs mainly invest in email marketing, online content management and digital analytics technology. The report suggests that artificial intelligence could eventually be used to design marketing campaigns in future, rather than people.
For the full story on CNBC, click here.
Mad&Women founder on ‘femtising’ versus ‘femwashing
Founder and CEO of France’s Mad&Women advertising agency, Christelle Delarue, has delivered a talk on ‘feminist advertising’ at the UNESCO headquarters. Delarue spoke on Fighting Gender Stereotypes through Innovative Solutions.
She said although women represented the biggest emerging market in the world, only 3% of creative directors globally were women. Which was no wonder women felt advertisers didn’t understand them.
Delarue said the advertising industry should become a strong ally and advocate in the fight for gender equality through the media. Her approach, she said, was “femvertising” (when advertising employs pro-female talent, messaging and imagery to empower women and girls) as opposed to “femwashing” (which used marketing tools stereotyping women to increase sales).
In today’s media, women have 48% more chance of being represented in their kitchen, while 82% of experts roles in advertising are filled by men, including in some ads that seem to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. To fight against these reductive and belittling stereotypes, Ms Delarue emphasized the need to end misrepresentation of women and to say no to “Femwashing”, defined as marketing tools stereotyping women to increase sales.
UNESCO’s Director for Priority Gender Equality, Saniye Gülser Corat, said that with the advertising industry being at the heart of the private sector, it was “crucial to identify and challenge gender stereotypes in advertising to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality”.
The full story is on the Modern Diplomacy website here.
