Beyond the Black Box: Reimagining Trust & Transparency in the Ad Industry

“The goal is not to do business with people who need what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” – Simon Sinek

A few weeks ago, two things happened within the span of 24 hours that sparked a moment of clarity. I had stayed up late finishing Walter Isaacson’s renowned biography of Steve Jobs. Later that same morning, I received a text message with a link from an old friend and colleague that simply read: “An oldie, but goodie!” When I was able to slip away for a few minutes for lunch, I clicked the link to find the grainy video of Simon Sinek’s 2009 TEDx Talk on the “Golden Circle” and the importance of “Why.” I’d seen it before, but it hit a bit differently on this day.

Already reflecting on Jobs’s obsession with the intersection of art and technology and relentless pursuit of aesthetic beauty and simplicity, Sinek’s talk crystallized a crucial insight: it was imperative for us to unpack, understand, and articulate what drives Octerra and everyone here. I challenged our team to look within; and me, specifically, to explore the ethos of our company - not to formulate some grand vision or mission statement, but to boil everything we do, why we do it, why it matters and why we care, to its purest form - something that articulates our vision, our mission, our why, and our passion all at once. Remarkably (and thankfully) it became clear quite quickly: TRUST.

Trust is often dismissed as a cliché in the business world, a buzzword devoid of any real meaning, but it remains a critical component of all business relationships. For the marketing and advertising industry in particular, trust is essential and yet, it is an industry where it has possibly taken the biggest hit.

“You may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here?” – David Byrne

Rewind 10 years… 

Marketing Week’s headline from 2014’s Cannes Lions Festival was: “Client/agency trust issues still threaten marketing’s success.”

In 2016, within months of each other, the ANA released its bombshell report on media transparency that uncovered a myriad of non-transparent business practices, and the Department of Justice launched an investigation into production bidding practices for commercial advertising jobs– a one-two punch that dealt a massive blow to a relationship dynamic that was already balancing on a razor’s edge.

In 2017, spurred by the DOJ investigation, the ANA released its own report on “Production Transparency in the U.S. Advertising Industry.” with the key finding of the report being transparency concerns across multiple agencies and holding companies.

The industry was flooded with articles about the decline of trust in the agency-client relationship. Transparency and trust were hot button issues. The trust gap widened and deepened. According to a study conducted in 2018, trust in partnerships with their agency declined by almost 40% between the years of 2016 to 2018. It was a true crisis in confidence.

All of a sudden, transparency was the buzzword that everyone was talking about: how agencies can be more transparent and how agencies can use transparency to win more clients.

It has now been 10 years since the article from the 2014 Cannes Lions Festival, six years since the ANA's Media Transparency report and five years since their Production Transparency report. Has anything changed?  

The short answer is: not really.

Anecdotally, you could make the argument that client and agency trust is on the mend. There haven’t been any major industry scandals or investigations that have brought the issue to the fore. And in general, there is less noise in the marketplace. But, to declare victory over the conflict, would be a mistake. Today’s relative calm betrays a palpable unease between clients and their agencies.

At a recent industry event, senior marketing procurement professionals were asked to rank priorities by highest to lowest perceived value with respect to their agency relationships. Attendees selected “Increased Transparency/Trust” as the second highest out of 5 options – above “Best Talent on Account,” “Agency Buy-in to Brand’s Strategic Goals,” and “Progressive and Fair Compensation Models” (only “Higher Quality Output” ranked higher).

In that same survey the group was asked, “How do you think your agencies are doing as stewards of your pass-through marketing production spending?” Thirty-five percent (35%) indicated “a bad job” or that they “didn’t have enough information to say.” Zero percent (0%) said they thought their agencies did “a good job.” Zero.

There is no question. Creativity stands at the heart of this ecosystem, simultaneously as its driving force and its most sought-after end product, but trust forms the foundation upon which everything is built. Nothing works without trust – trust between clients and their agencies, agencies and their clients, and between vendors and both groups. Even within the same company, relationships between departments there can be issues. Finance, procurement, and marketing often coexist in a delicate balance somewhere between healthy tension and outright conflict.  Trust is more important than ever, and clearly there is significant need to improve. The critical question is: HOW?

“Trust but verify.” – Ronald Reagan (quoting a Russian proverb)

Breakthroughs in camera technology, AR, VR, virtual production, VFX software, and everything in between have revolutionized content creation and advertising. Likewise, the advent of programmatic advertising and the proliferation of digital, social, and connected TV media platforms have transformed how content is distributed, delivered, and consumed. Yet, the methods for sourcing, negotiating, and purchasing creative and production services remain archaic—highly manual, disorganized, and slow. Critical information is buried within texts, emails, and spreadsheets, scattered and siloed within individuals’ phones and inboxes. The result is a complete black box, and black boxes by their very nature undermine trust. That is where we saw an opportunity for innovation.We believed that technology could be used to ensure transparency, access, organization, and security, ultimately demystifying and streamlining the entire process. Thus, Octerra was born.

Don’t misunderstand; we’re not claiming that Octerra is a silver bullet that instantly forges an unbreakable bond of trust between all who use it. We recognize that personal relationships form the bedrock of trust. On the surface, Octerra is a centralized, shared platform that enables stakeholders from all areas of the business to collaborate and source, bid, evaluate, and select the best creative resources for their needs. Go a layer deeper, however, and you’ll find that Octerra provides a seamless backdrop that ensures a level of transparency and accountability that organically establishes and builds trust without the need for disruptive, time-consuming audits and intrusions. 

"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships." – Stephen M. R. Covey

Certainly, Octerra delivers very real and significant financial and operational benefits – increased productivity, faster time to award, cost savings, valuable data insights to name a few. No doubt, those benefits are a huge part of what we talk about with our customers and prospects. The value of using Octerra, however, is more fundamental. Octerra’s true value lies in how it naturally creates an environment where trust is established and flourishes organically as you use the product. In today’s market, trust transcends operational efficiency to become a strategic asset that enables deeper, more meaningful collaborations that drive innovation, creativity and ultimately market success.

Postscript:

Last week, I attended the Association of National Advertisers Financial Management Conference and first off, let me say that there isn't a better group of people to hang with. Everyone there was genuine in their passion and care for the industry. Once again, however, trust and transparency were hot topics of conversation. We are encouraging people to take action. We think Octerra is a big part of the solution.

I invite you to take a look at Octerra and let me know what you think.  Finally, please call me out on anything you disagree with here. I welcome your feedback and perspective. We are only going to make things better by doing things together.

#ANAFM #MarketingProcurement #MarketingandAdvertising #Martech #ProcureTech

Note: A different version of this article was previously posted on Octerra's blog earlier this year.