Hasta La Creative!

An on-stage conversation among the half-dozen heads of the biggest media agency groups on Tuesday became the most confrontational panel yet at the 4A’s Transformation conference in New Orleans.

Moderator David Verklin of Calera Capital kicked off his probing with a pointed question about the trading desks where agencies increasingly buy digital media. Some agencies arbitrage that inventory, applying their own data and insights to the media they’ve secured and then charging clients a higher price than they paid. “If you agree that clients’ business comes first, where do you stand on transparency?” Mr. Verklin asked Group M Chairman-CEO Irwin Gotleib. “How can trading desks be fair to your clients?”

Mr. Gotlieb, who has been an advocate of arbitrage in digital trading, said: “We have to be transparent with the client on what the business model is and we have to execute that way. But it doesn’t say in Genesis that everything we do has to be on a fully disclosed basis to clients. We have to make massive investments in the business and those don’t lend themselves to overhead charges of 200-300%.”

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