P&G Exec Blasts Media & Metrics

Not so long ago, online gurus promised that “new metrics” such as clicks, views and the like would revolutionize media spending. Not quite, argues an industry executive who knows something about money and advertising budgets. Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer at Procter & Gamble overseas a $2.8 billion media buy budget and doesn't like what he sees. According to CNBC, Pritchard called on the media buying and selling industry to become transparent in the face of “crappy advertising accompanied by even crappier viewing experiences.” P&G has given agencies a year to get to “a transparent, clean and productive media supply chain,” or risk losing its business, according to Pritchard, who spoke at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, a digital advertising industry conference on Sunday.


He called on marketers to follow P&G's lead in using one advertising “viewability” standard. P&G  will use a Media Ratings Council set standard to understand whether online advertising reaches human viewers, rather than bots, for example.


“Better advertising and media transparency are closely related. Why? Because better advertising requires time and money, yet we're all wasting way too much time and money on a media supply chain with poor standards adoption, too many players grading their own homework, too many hidden touches, and too many holes to allow criminals to rip us off,” Pritchard said, according to a transcript of the speech seen by CNBC.com.


“We have a media supply chain that is murky at best and fraudulent at worst. We need to clean it up, and invest the time and money we save into better advertising to drive growth,” he added.

According to CNBC, P&G called for the marketing and media industry to adopt one viewability standard for online advertising, use third-party measurement verification, get transparent agency contracts and prevent ad fraud by working with industry body the Trustworthy Accountability Group. Its fifth call to action is to “vote with our dollars,” or stop working with agencies, suppliers and ad tech companies that don't comply with its requirements.