An estimated N13.4 billion, representing 54 per cent of media advertising spend in 2016, is neither executed at all nor implemented on time, as agreed between the media and advertisers.
According to a special investigation conducted in the first quarter of this year by the Intelligence Desk of MARKETING EDGE, a leading marketing and advertising publication, an estimated N13.4 billion of media advertising which would have been paid for was either misplaced (that is, advert not carried as planned and ordered) or unaccounted for (that is 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 magazine said.
MARKETING EDGE said a radio station in the North claimed 100 per cent compliance in January but was proved wrong after checks by a leading media monitoring service provider.
“Similarly, during the investigation, MARKETING EDGE checks gathered that in another situation, 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.
“Findings further revealed that the dispute involving a media agency, a broadcast station and a media monitoring service agency was finally resolved in February (2017) through the hiring of another media monitoring service provider who used its audio-playback facility. This no doubt confirmed earlier fears of a tripartite conspiracy in the Nigerian media market,” it said.
It was gathered that some broadcast stations allegedly doctored advert logs.
MARKETING EDGE said: “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 after the station’s logs for that particular month were backed with air-side-audio files from a media monitoring service provider.
“The lack of standards in the media monitoring space and the abuse and fraud that results there from is not limited to some media monitoring service firms and broadcast organisations and their employees.
“Our Intelligence Unit also gathered authoritatively that in one instance, a Finance Director in a leading multinational company summoned the Head of Marketing of his organisation and 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 company, in collusion with the interfacing officials of broadcast organisation, had been creaming off media spend.