Advertising Financial Management Committee

The Advertising Financial Management Committee explores efficiencies, cost savings, return on investment, and bringing better value to members' organizations. Participants on this committee have varied job responsibilities including financial managers working with advertising/marketing, marketing procurement and sourcing professionals, and members within general marketing and advertising management.

The ANA Advertising Financial Management Committee is currently meeting virtually every other month through August 2022. You can register to attend through the corresponding meeting links in the right sidebar.

Committee Chair:

• Sherry Ulsh, Director, Indirect Procurement, The Hershey Company

ANA Staff:

• Barbie Romero, Senior Manager
• Greg Wright, Vice President

Resources:

• Presentations and recaps from the 2022 ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference
• Resource List of Certified Diverse Suppliers for Marketing/Advertising
• Procurement and finance content section in the ANA Marketing Knowledge Center
• The Agency Search and Selection Playbook
• Procurement Mentoring Program
• Resources for Media Agency Contract Compliance, Media Auditing and Related Services
• Agency Compensation Methods: An ANA Guidebook

Discussion Topics:

• Agency compensation (media and creative: models, rate benchmarking, bonus structures, etc.)
• Audits (e.g. financial, contractual, media) and performance monitoring
• Management models and structures
• Marketing accountability
• Measuring/maximizing ROI
• Media and creative/production management models (in-housing, AOR, modified AOR)
• Negotiation strategies
• Procurement organization (e.g. team structure, org chart, job roles, talent, etc.)
• Production models and management (managing costs)
• Relationship management (e.g. performance management and evaluation)
• Search and selection process
• SOW development and best practices
• Spend management and optimization (tools and technologies/strategies to help manage)
• Strategic sourcing and process excellence
• The cost/value equation
• Trust and transparency in external contracts (media, production, experiential, etc.)

Leadership Initiatives

Certified Diverse Suppliers Resource List
Finding diverse suppliers is a key challenge in supplier diversity. As a follow-up to the 2020 report, “The Power of Supplier Diversity,” ANA/AIMM began curating a list of diverse suppliers that work in our industry. The initial “Certified Diverse Suppliers Resource List” was issued in July 2020 and has been updated on a regular basis. The last 2021 update, published in December, listed 377 companies. The list more than doubled in 2021, increasing from 186 companies a year earlier.

And Now a Word from the Diverse Suppliers: The Supplier Perspective on Certification
This research surveyed suppliers on the ANA/AIMM list of certified diverse suppliers. The focus was on certification, to understand its importance, benefits, challenges, ease/difficulty of the process, and more. The research found that there are multiple benefits of obtaining certification. Businesses are included in more RFPs, which provides additional exposure to corporate marketing departments, which leads to increased sales. (December 2021)

The Growth of Supplier Diversity
A supplier diversity program is a proactive business program which encourages the use of women-owned, ethnic/minority-owned, veteran-owned, LGBTQ-owned, disability-owned, and small businesses as suppliers. “The Growth of Supplier Diversity” provides a deep dive into supplier diversity in marketing/advertising, covering areas including benefits, challenges, spend, goals, and measurement. The report is based on both quantitative (March 2021 survey with 112 respondents) and qualitative research. “The Growth of Supplier Diversity” is a follow-up to the 2020 ANA report “The Power of Supplier Diversity.” (May 2021)

The Business Case for Relationship Management
A strong client/agency relationship management program with at least an annual 360º evaluation component is key to ensuring a long-term client/agency relationship that is built on trust. This report from the 4A’s and ANA covers the findings from quantitative and qualitative research conducted to measure the current state of affairs related to relationship management program adoption levels, overall satisfaction, and benefits derived from their use. (October 2020)

The Power of Supplier Diversity
A supplier diversity program is a proactive business program which encourages the use of women-owned, ethnic/minority-owned, veteran-owned, LGBTQ-owned, disability-owned, and small businesses as suppliers. This report covers the findings from quantitative and qualitative research conducted by the ANA. The purpose was to gain an understanding of the incidence of supplier diversity programs as well as benefits, challenges, spend, goals, measurement, influence, and more. (May 2020)

Payment Terms: Current Practices for Marketing Services
Given member interest resulting from coverage in the advertising/marketing trade press regarding changes in payment terms being implemented by a handful of companies to some suppliers, ANA initiated research to determine if such changes were isolated examples or reflective of a broader trend. The answer is clear: payment term changes, notably extended terms, are reflective of a broader trend. The services noted most for extended payment terms are agency fees, research, and production. The majority of respondents who have extended their payment terms have done so to derive better cash flow. (March 2020)

Media Agency Compensation Practices
Given the rapidly changing digital, social, and programmatic media landscape, the ANA fielded this survey to delve into the topic of media agency compensation practices and the related issues of performance incentives and programmatic compensation/transparency, as well as rebates, discounts, and principal-based buying. ANA is well known for our triennial reports on agency compensation, which cover all types of agencies. Our last such report was in 2017. This year, given a number of member requests to our Marketing Knowledge Center, we conducted a deep dive specifically on media agency compensation. (September 2019)

Issues that Contribute to the Breakdown of Trust in the Advertising Ecosystem
The ANA launched the Trust Consortium in partnership with our outside counsel, Reed Smith, to help address the issue of trust between marketers and the advertising ecosystem. To identify future focus areas for the Trust Consortium, a survey asked client-side marketers to rate a number of issues on how they contribute to the breakdown of trust. (September 2019)

Enhancing Trust Between Marketers and Agencies
There has been recent discussion and debate about the level of trust in the advertising industry today. To determine exactly where things stand, the ANA fielded a survey focusing on the current level of trust between client-side marketers and advertising agencies, and asked if trust has changed versus two to three years ago and how it can it be enhanced going forward. (March 2019)

ANA Agency Compensation Task Force
The current model of compensating agencies based on hours/inputs isn't working anymore for many marketers and agencies. The objective of this task force is to explore new methods and practices for agency compensation that are mutually beneficial for both. To kick off this task force, eleven subject matter experts shared their perspectives via webinar. A recap is available here. You can also view the webinars on demand. (December 2018)

Programmatic: Seeing Through the Financial Fog
With the rapid adoption of programmatic media, the supply chain has quickly become complicated — regarding agencies, trading desks, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, data management platforms, exchanges, and publishers. To many, the result is a financial "fog." ANA, ACA (Association of Canadian Advertisers), AD/FIN Solutions, and Ebiquity PLC commissioned a study that provides practical solutions to help advertisers take greater control of their programmatic investments and to investigate the costs and economics of the programmatic ecosystem. (May 2017)

How to Sell the Benefits of Marketing Procurement Internally
The ANA's Procurement Task Force, a group dedicated to elevating the role of marketing procurement, compiled this guidance for the marketing procurement professional. The paper identifies ten ways marketing procurement delivers value. Procurement professionals new to marketing procurement will find the most benefit here, although this may prove helpful to even the most seasoned marketing procurement professional. (May 2016)

Eliminating Marketing Procurement: An Industry Trend?
A recent advertising industry trade press article reported that a major corporation has eliminated its marketing procurement department, moving the function to brand teams to improve efficiency and effectiveness. ANA reached out to our procurement and financial management community to get perspective. (November 2015)

Enhancing Client/Agency Relationships
ANA conducted parallel surveys among ANA members and agencies on issues related to the client/agency relationship. Clients and agencies agree that their client/agency relationships are strong, a long-term client/agency relationship is important, and they trust the other. However, there are pockets of dissatisfaction. Clients and agencies are not in agreement on whether clients provide clear assignment briefings to agencies. Clients and agencies are not in agreement that the client approval process works well. (April 2015)

Optimizing the Procurement and Marketing Relationship
The overall objective of this research was to examine the relationship between procurement and marketing and the factors that lead to the strongest internal partnerships and business results. Findings indicate that the marketing/procurement relationship may have finally turned the corner and is now on a positive path. That is big news. Both marketing and marketing procurement note improvement in their relationship in the past year, and those levels of improvement are substantial. The research identifies the attributes that correlate to a strong relationship between marketing and procurement as well as tangible steps both can take to enhance that working relationship. (June 2014)