N13.4bn advertising vote not executed by media houses -Report

An independent investigation has disclosed that an estimate N13.4 billion representing 54 percent of the total amount voted for media advertising in 2016 are either not executed at all or not implemented on time as agreed between the media and business owners.

The report went further to state that there seems to be a tripartite conspiracy in the Nigerian media market, insisting that lack of standards in the media monitoring space, abuse and fraud is not limited to some media monitoring service firms and broadcast organizations but has extended to their employees.

This was contained in a special investigation, conducted by Intelligence Desk of Marketing Edge, a leading marketing and advertising publication, in the first quarter of 2017.

Marketing Edge went further to disclose some media monitoring service providers connive with radio and television owners to issue false compliance certificate, stating that a radio station in the North which claimed to have carried out all its advert obligations in January but was faulted after a closer study by a monitoring service provider.

“According to the discovery, an estimated N13.4bn of media advertising which would have been paid for was either misplaced (i.e. advert not carried as planned and ordered) or unaccounted for (i.e. advert not monitored to be sure it was carried in the first place).

“The situation is compounded by allegations that some media monitoring service providers may have been conniving with some radio and television stations as well as media agency employees to issue questionable, even fraudulent media compliance report over the years” the report revealed.

The company stated that the wrath in advertising fund has gone so bad that some broadcast stations have been penciled as being in the habit of doctoring advert logs.

“Our intelligence team discovered the case of an Ibadan based TV station which after a lot of back and forth with an advertiser had the dispute resolved only after the station’s logs for that particular month were backed with air-side-audio files from a media monitoring service provider.”

The investigating company disclosed that one of the three media monitoring service providers had given a zero compliance on a media campaign that none of the advert spots earlier booked by an advertiser was carried at all or on time as planned and ordered.

The finding revealed another situation involving a media agency, a broadcast station and a media monitoring service agency which was finally resolved in February 2017 through the hiring of another media monitoring service provider who used its audio-playback facility.

“Our intelligence unit also gathered authoritatively that in one instance, a Finance Director of a leading multinational company summoned the Head of Marketing of his organization and also invited a media monitoring service provider whose reports allegedly resulted in huge savings on media spend for verification. At the end of the meeting, there was evidence that the marketing executives of the said company in collusion with the interfacing officials of broadcast organization, had been creaming off media spend.”

The report expressed dissatisfaction that at a time when businesses are under profit pressures from the economic recession, there remains a compelling need by the advertisers to invest even more in media advertising to cope with keen competition in the marketplace but stated that it remains a mystery why and how business leaders seem to look the other way when it comes to transparency and accountability on the media advertising front.

They expressed their disappointment that business owners expend so much time and effort in ensuring that raw material and other inputs are delivered according to specification, on time and within budget but go to sleep when it comes to media advertising deliveries.

In his reaction, a seasoned statistician and media specialist, Mr. Taiwo Olowokere attributed the problem to poor awareness and lack of interest by captains of industries and business owners to scrutinize the reliability of their service provider and the veracity of the media compliance reports that they provide.

According to Olowokere, ‘companies and corporations will continue to spend huge billions of naira on media advertising without gaining requisite value for money as long as the Chief Executive Officers of these corporations fail to show more than a passing interest in the yearly media budget and how it was spent.”