Advertising Financial Management Committee

Open to Client-Side Marketer members only

The Advertising Financial Management Committee strives to bring better value to members' organizations by discussing such important topics as process efficiencies, cost savings, and return on investment. Participants on this committee have varied job responsibilities including financial managers, marketing procurement and sourcing professionals, and members within general marketing and advertising management.

This committee helps program the ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference, next planned for April 30 – May 3, 2023 in Phoenix, AZ.

Committee Co-Chairs:

• Sherry Ulsh, Director, Indirect Procurement, The Hershey Company
• Katherine Freely, Global Head of Media & Digital, Procurement, Novartis

ANA Staff:

• Greg Wright, Vice President
• Peter Kenigsberg, Director

Resources:

• Supplier Diversity Resources
• Register now for the 2023 ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference
• Presentations and recaps from the 2022 ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference
• Procurement and finance content section in the ANA Marketing Knowledge Center
• The Agency Search and Selection Playbook
• 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

ANA/4A’s Agency Search Simplification Report
The agency search/pitch process has become fraught with concerns by both agencies and clients. Both sides recognize the complexity of the process yet aspire for an opportunity to reach a mutually agreeable solution. The ANA and the 4A’s surveyed their respective members to understand the various pain points in the agency search process, as well as their value (or lack thereof) to the overall process. This report contains results of that survey, as well as key findings, conclusions, and next steps. (September 2022)

Guidelines to Help Buyers and Diverse Media Suppliers Work Better Together
There are two complementary sets of guidelines:

• For Buyers (Agencies and Marketers) When Doing Business with Diverse Media Suppliers
• For Diverse Media Suppliers When Doing Business with Buyers (Agencies and Marketers)

Procurement 2022: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The relationship between marketing procurement and marketing has shown some modest improvement while the relationship between procurement and agencies has not. The report concludes with ten specific recommendations to improve the relationships between procurement and marketing and procurement and agencies. (August 2022)

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. (July 2022)

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 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)