Let’s talk Media
Media can sometimes seem a bit murky. With back-door deals, hazy supply chains, and a whole load of jargon, it’s not easy to follow the money.
As a client, you might wonder where exactly your budgets – or even your ads – end up. Are you getting the best plan or price? And are you getting the most out of your money – is your campaign as effective as it could be?
At Media Bounty, we do things differently. We’ve built our media offering on what we value: openness and honesty. Our media service is transparent and neutral. We co-founded the Conscious Advertising Network to build a better industry, and we follow their principles. We measure, reduce and offset carbon across all our campaigns.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? But what does that mean for you and your organisation?
Here’s what makes our media offering effective, ethical and easier for you.
Transparency: All rebates and commissions go straight back to you.
To motivate agencies, media owners offer rewards. From free space, to free money.
Many agencies transfer the value to particular clients, where their exit rate is subject to an independent audit, or to compensate for finance and delivery errors.
But if your budget bought the space, then that rebate is yours. So we always give it straight back to you. Meaning you get up to 15% more for your money than you might elsewhere.
Agency discounts and commission tend to apply to most legacy or traditional channels. We will always show you the ‘gross’ cost as quoted by the media owner and the commission applied on your media plans. The cost you pay is the cost we pay – no sneaky buying fees.
Neutrality: We always give you the best plan for your brief.
Network agencies often buy inventory in advance – buying at scale to ensure they can meet PRF* and audit** obligations.
They enter into share deals, have preferential trading agreements and will have proprietary partners that direct what shows up on clients’ media plans.
They need to shift that inventory – so they build it into their clients’ strategies. Meaning you won’t always get the strongest strategy or plan.
We’re motivated by effectiveness. So we don’t hold inventory. We don’t do agency deals. Instead, we give our media team the freedom to recommend what’s best for your brand.
Accountability: We’re building a better industry
Advertising funds the internet. Which means that advertising funds the spaces where hate and disinformation live. Disinformation is bad for people, planet and your profits – a nightmare for your brand’s safety.
We’re committed to using our skills and influence to build better. So we co-founded the Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) to build better.
CAN works directly with advertising platforms, media owners and publishers to pioneer positive changes and set new human rights precedents within the industry. By tackling waste and fraud, safeguarding society and the environment, and championing supply chain transparency, CAN unlocks new opportunities for growth and innovation.
Their 180+ members include some of the world’s biggest brands, agencies and civil society groups.
We wrote the guidebook, so we stick to it. And our people work across both, giving us unparalleled insight into the future of our industry.
Carbon Impact: We’re committed to carbon reduction
When it comes to carbon, media generates the lion’s share of any campaign’s footprint.
We measure the carbon of each and every campaign – not just for the clients who request it. And we’re always working on reducing this impact.
And for the remaining impact, we offset via high quality, REDD+ accredited World Land Trust projects – the UN’s gold standard. These donations go towards protecting established carbon reserves in partnership with local communities. Never to planting vast monocultures that damage ecosystems and local communities.
Jargon Explainer:
*PRF – Performance Related Fee and sometimes forms a part of the client / agency contract. It can be linked to account management and client service criteria, business results and / or buying rates. The agency will be scored on the pre-agreed metrics and can earn a bonus if they meet or exceed the target.
**Audit – advertisers (usually in the multi-million spend category) may appoint an independent auditor like Ebiquity to analyse media investment.
They might look at share of spend by channel and by media owner – but the main thing everyone cares about is pricing. Agencies are required to share media plans and booking reports. The auditor produces a very long and painful review to assess quality and pricing of the media bought vs their ‘pool’ (all the other clients they audit).
They present back to the client, whether the agency paid more or less than the pool for e.g. a page in the Mail or 100 ratings on ITV whilst also factoring in the quality of the placement – where ‘first-in-break’ TV ads or ‘first ad page’ in press carries a higher quality score.
If a client audit is linked to the PRF, an agency will move the agency accrued value to benefit the audited clients. So if the agency gets one free page with a newspaper for every 10 they buy (across multiple clients) then they could choose to use the free page for the audited client so their average page rate is more competitive, they deliver a better rate than the pool and they get their bonus.
