The Truth About Media Rebates

For anyone like me who spent an extended amount of time working on the creative or strategy side of the marketing agency world, the media agencies have always seemed like our overpaid and underworked cousins who routinely get wined and dined by publishers in exchange for the hope of media dollars flowing their way.

Now the ANA has published a damaging report that actually quantifies what many have long suspected ... that these “rebates” are a not-so-well disguised form of kickbacks that may be creating bias in media recommendations.

Predictably, brand marketers and anyone not on the media side welcomed the results, while media agencies largely dismissed the findings as only describing a small percentage of their less scrupulous peers. It remains to be seen whether the fallout will actually cause any change in media buying practices.