Do You Know Where Your Ad Dollars Are Going?

Questions Linger For Restaurant Marketing Executives After ANA ReportRumors of undisclosed rebates and overpriced principal transactions have plagued the media-buying industry for years, with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) beginning to investigate those and other non-transparent practices as early as 2011.  It was not until June 2016, when the ANA released An independent study of media transparency in the U.S. advertising industry (the “ANA Report”), that the industry at large, and advertisers in particular, began to take notice.  The ANA Report, co-authored by K2 Intelligence, concluded that non-transparent purchasing practices are “pervasive” in the media buying ecosystem. 

Any restaurant company that used an outside agency to buy media on its behalf should, at a minimum, consider whether it could be a possible victim of these non-transparent and potentially fraudulent activities.

Among other practices, the report detailed illicit agreements in which media…