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Media Auditing & Oversight
In today’s business environment, there are several compelling reasons to conduct a media audit. First, it just makes good business sense . . . it’s YOUR advertising investments that are at risk of under-performance or poor financial controls. Second, people are human and errors are made . . . even in the best client/agency relationship. Third, media buying and financial processes can almost always be improved.
Why Dicom?
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Proprietary Tools – Our database orientation provides a unique ability to electronically marry your media buys to industry benchmarks to identify the integrity and value of your investments.
Agency and Media Experience – It takes people with an advertising agency and media background to clearly understand the intricacies of media buying.
Financial Experience – Our financial auditors are CPA’s with degrees in accounting and 20+ years experience working in media buying firms. We understand agency bill and pay issues.
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Types Of Audits
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Media Spending Efficiencies - Dicom developed and maintains a proprietary media monitoring system for several Fortune 500 companies. This system, in use for over 8 years, tracks spending and measures performance against several critical benchmarks to determine how efficiently the clients’ media investments are being made.
Our models monitor performance by . . .
- TRP delivery by daypart and market
- CPP’s indexed to SQAD by daypart and market
- Individual media buyer
- Determining the value of “wasted dollars” due to under-performance
Methodologies are customized based on individual client planning guidelines and whether their investments are in Network TV, spot TV or spot radio.
Media Bill And Pay - Dicom validates the integrity of the bill and pay process for all major media: network TV/radio, spot TV/radio, magazines/trade journals and newspapers. We also perform audits on production, interactive and ethnic advertising as well.
Our audit approach accomplishes 3 main objectives:
- It assures the client that the agency has been billing them appropriately, and paying the corresponding media vendors in a timely manner.
- It puts the agency on notice that, while they are a marketing partner, there are inherent measures of corporate oversight, which are required. These measures insure the integrity of the agency's bill and pay process and that the proper internal controls are in place and the respective processes are in compliance.
- It holds the agency accountable for any sloppiness or mismanagement of past bill and pay transactions
Co-op Oversight – Dicom provides oversight services for clients with large dealer and distributor networks. Our media and financial auditors, armed with our proprietary systems, provide oversight services for all aspects of co-op:
- Tracking product level purchases by dealer and distributor
- Calculating co-op allowances based on purchases
- Providing real time co-op balances based on advertising placed and product purchased
- Auditing advertising placement to client guidelines with regard to logo usage, utilization of approved copy, proximity to completive ads etc.
- Auditing advertising placement to ensure fair value to the client based on issues such as ad size, unit length, use of color, agency commissions etc.
- Sales incentive programs
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Results
Our Media Spending Efficiencies audits . . .
- Saved one client, by their own internal estimate, $18,000,000 over a 4-year period.
- Improved the buying processes for another client that resulted in $5,000,000 in savings.
- Discovered an agency paying a 35% premium in major markets.
- Found another agency under-delivering primetime TRPs to achieve TRP goals in other dayparts. Revisions to buying guidelines dramatically improved the client’s message reach.
- Have been written into agency contracts regarding compensation.
Our Media Bill & Pay audits . . .
- Returned to a client over $600,000 (Year 1) and $750,000 (Year 2) on Internet advertising.
- Secured for a client over $400,000 in outdoor advertising billing credits not provided by the agency.
- Saved a client over $1,000,000 in fees and interest by providing negotiating leverage.
- Restructured the bill/pay process at an agency to increase accuracy.
Our Co-op Advertising audits . . .
- Cut the internal labor costs for a client in half as manual tasks were eliminated through the automation of our processes.
- Generated a significant increase in dealer satisfaction for a client through more timely payment of co-op advertising claims.
- Improved responsiveness by providing a client with real-time access to dealer co-op account status.
- Provided negotiation leverage for a client that increased product sales by 25% throughout its dealer network.
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