Why Media Audits Are a Good Thing

Issues and answers with media audience pioneer Stephen White, founder of EMM, London, why audit is important for risk management and responsibility

Stephen White, who more than a decade ago founded his auditing firm, EmM (Effective Media Management), to evaluate, compare and monitor advertisers’ media investments, believes that as media becomes more complex, “agencies should not be involved in “assessing their own homework.”

“Advertisers require independent evaluation and auditing,” he says, “and from that point of view, agencies can have no other role but to deliver excellent results.”

White knows what office life is; Starting his career as an intern at Unilever, he worked at McCann-Erickson in Europe and New York. Prior to EMM, White was a director of Aegis Group. In addition to its headquarters in London, EMM has offices in New York City, where it manages its operations in the United States and Canada, as well as in Miami, Singapore and Dubai.

Media auditing has been a common practice in the UK for 25 years and today 55% of all consumer media spending in this country is audited. Service penetration in North America is slower, but White says the failures of WorldCom, ENRON and Parmalat have revived an independent audit of financial transactions.

Some media audits are held in Canada, but are mostly conducted by internal auditors or firms such as KPMG. The U.S. takes the same approach as Europe, using third-party companies including EMM and another British auditor, Billetts Media Performance Monitor America.

White recently spoke about the facts and fictions of the media audit with MIC:

Why should advertisers invest in media audits?

A: Let me try to resolve the fundamental misunderstanding that seems to prevail in North America about the role of media listeners. We are not random – although this is part of our service – but high-quality media management processors that act as an alternative media unit for many international advertisers.

Confirmation that the advertiser receives what he paid for is only 25% of our commission. The rest is devoted to comparative analysis of overall effectiveness and performance. Good media management, which later includes media review programmes, provides an average return on investment 20 to 30 times our cost.

Since media are usually the second-highest level of the manufacturer’s capital expenditure (usually 4% to 8% of total revenue is spent on media), it is unusual and currently unacceptable to spend all this. This money is on the outside without any logic to entrust. external supplier. checks and balances. The media should be independently considered for best practice and shareholders should be reassured in the light of the amount of funds raised.

In: Does media audit affect the effectiveness of advertising campaigns?

A: The type of audit we offer is fully focused on improving both media efficiency and media efficiency.

While auditing is one of the things we will be discussing in North America, we will be spending more time on quality media strategy reviews, targeting, media weight, effective frequency bands, etc. than some would like.

Remember that we are hired by clients, not agencies. We meet their needs.

In: Does the choice of a third-party media audit mean a lack of trust in the client’s media management company and media providers?

A: Media agencies that have not provided quality media planning and procurement and have not indicated what additional revenue related to the volume they can receive from media owners have everything to worry about upon our arrival.


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