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Tom Denford and David Indo from ID Comms: transparency crisis hits Japan

On this week’s #MediaSnack, Tom and David highlight the rather sad news that the media transparency concerns are not going away anytime soon.

Stories have been emerging this week from Japan where Dentsu, the dominant advertising services group, has admitted that its digital media buying operation has overcharged some clients, with potentially more than 600 cases of over-charging across the last five years.

The news has led to a dramatic fall in the Dentsu share price, with the issue potentially calling into question Dentsu’s dominance of the Japan market. There is huge potential for conflicts of interest in a company that not only buys media on behalf of its clients but also owns some of the media it is buying for its clients.

Tom and David consider the implications and ask what global marketers should make of this latest scandal affecting agency financial management.

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