Federica Bowman of FirmDecisions – Why we still need to see financial transparency in media

A view from Federica Bowman, Managing Director – Digital at FirmDecisions on ‘Why we still need to see financial transparency in media’ has been featured in More About Advertising.

The article highlights the bold and confident steps the media and marketing industry has taken in the last three years on the journey towards transparency, but also stressing how there is a short fall of initiatives focusing specifically on financial transparency. 

Recently, the IAB launched their new transparency initiative – a set of 20 frequently asked questions (Transparency FAQs), designed to help brands improve the transparency they from supply chain vendors. Federica highlights “any initiative designed to improve transparency in media trading is to be welcomed, and the IAB’s Transparency FAQs are definitely another step – in the right direction.”

However, Federica goes on to highlight where the initiative falls short:

“Where the initiative falls short, however, is what for FirmDecisions is the single most important aspect of transparency: financial transparency. As the trade body that represents vendors, platforms, online publishers, and agencies involved in the transacting of digital media inventory, it is perhaps not surprising that the IAB chose to focus on the quality rather than the transactional aspects of transparency. And yet from our perspective, we believe that brands don’t just need confidence in the quality of media inventory. They also have the right to know what the nature of each relationship in the transactional chain is, who takes what percentage of a total media buy, and what advertisers receive in return for their investment.”

To read the article in full on More About Advertising’s website, please click here.

First featured 05/03/2019