Volkswagen is reviewing its global media account – worth more than $1bn – according to reports. WPP’s MediaCom is VW’s main media agency.
VW is the latest in a seemingly never-ending stream of blue chip advertisers looking at media, others include Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.
Clients are forever trying to save money by getting the best media (and creative) deals but this outbreak of media review-itis may be more than coincidental.
The vexed question of media rebates has been grabbing the headlines recently with MediaCom in the dock in Australia, where it’s been forced to make changes and hand money back to clients.
Such concerns must surely be in the minds of clients as they embark on the tortuous and expensive business of reviewing their media. Planning and buying media has become more opaque than ever in the era of programmatic buying and suchlike.
In such reviews you’d expect clients to avail themselves of the services of a media auditing company. But such companies have known about ‘disappearing’ media rebates for years. Most of them are former media agency poachers turned gamekeepers after all.
Who’ll be the first client to give the job to Pinkerton’s?
Update 26/3/15
Sony is reportedly reviewing its global media too. Anybody left? Oh, and Johnson & Johnson. Think this constitutes a trend..
