Media Forum: 2016 Year in Review

But change doesn’t just come through new hires and we are seeing many companies successfully evolve for the data driven era. This involves up-skilling, re-examining agency relationships and embedding technology and data to deliver ‘precision at scale’ – the media director’s mantra in 2016.

Control and transparency are core requirements for programmatic to work with full effect, and we’ve seen a number of clients implementing ‘second generation’ models in 2016. Agency Trading Desks remain the most common way of conducting programmatic but the market is evolving rapidly, with in-house and ‘hybrid’ models on a considerable growth trajectory.

WFA research in 2016 also found that clients are moving their programmatic investments towards Private Market Places (PMPs) to limit their exposure to ad fraud.

WFA’s Compendium of Ad Fraud Knowledge for Media Investors, published in 2016, calculated that ad fraud represents $50bn on a conservative estimate, but it’s not unrealistic to assume that the true number might be three times larger than this.

Our compendium focused on solutions to limit and reduce fraud and we’ve been developing these principles in meetings. But ad fraud is an intractable problem, perpetuated by the structure and systems in place in the digital media ecosystem. Undoubtedly this will continue to be a focus for the Media Forum.

MEDIAFORUM 2016 in numbers:

• 6 meetings, 6 countries, 3 continents


• >160 participants


• 688 total contacts


• 1 ground-breaking guide on ad fraud


• 5 critical reports covering ‘media transformation’ to ad server management


• 9 in 10 members making changes to programmatic models to improve transparency and control


• 62% of respondents agree that they have not ‘opted-in’ to principal trading and are not comfortable with the potential conflicts of interest


• >400 members engaged in benchmarks, surveys and requests (n.b this is primarily Media Forum but is not limited to that group, i.e also includes a few CDO bits. Ideally you’d want the numbers across all groups…)


• 88% of respondents agree that their organisations have concerns about the lack of transparency and fraud in digital media and programmatic.

MEDIAFORUM 2016 attendees:

1. Christian Flouch, Anheuser-Busch InBev


2. Jan Worre Pedersen, Arla Foods


3. Judy Davey, Association of Canadian Advertisers


4. Bill Duggan, Association of National Advertisers 


5. Marni Gordon, Association of National Advertisers


6. Elinor Bateman, Barclays


7. Zvi Cole, Beiersdorf


8. Mark Butterfield, Boehringer Ingelheim


9. Eric Yi, Boehringer Ingelheim


10. Vineet Agrawal, Brown-Forman


11. Barbara Pinna, Brown-Forman


12. Daria Rasmussen, Carlsberg


13. Andras Mohos, Carlsberg


14. Maciej Szyszkowski, Carlsberg


15. Julianna Ng, Cathay Pacific


16. Kwan Yim, Citi Group


17. Harold Fernandes, Colgate-Palmolive


18. Katherine Freeley, Colgate-Palmolive


19. Ivan Jennings, Colgate-Palmolive


20. Danielle Koffer, Colgate-Palmolive


21. Namita Shenoy, Colgate-Palmolive


22. Anna Ross, Combe


23. Rajiv Dubey, Dabur


24. Ulrich Loechner, Daimler


25. Denisa Maluskova, Daniel Swarovski Corp.


26. Marta Catasus Planell, Desigual


27. Vera Klimm, Deutsche Telekom


28. Gerhard Louw, Deutsche Telekom


29. Gerhard Louw, Deutsche Telekom


30. Kelley Campbell, Diageo


31. Joanne Gendle, Diageo


32. Ingrid Huang, Diageo


33. Cici Ling, Diageo


34. Preeti Stanley, Diageo


35. James Taylor, Diageo


36. Kiki Fang, Ferrero


37. Bincymon George, Ferrero


38. Alberto Tucci, Ferrero


39. Raimon Casals, GB Foods


40. Scott Grenz, GlaxoSmithKline


41. Eulalia Higueras-Lopez, GlaxoSmithKline


42. Bhavana Mittal, GlaxoSmithKline


43. Allard de Wijkerslooth, Heineken


44. Rebekah Kennedy, Heineken


45. Gregory Kukolj, Heineken


46. Danny Duan, Hershey Company


47. Kate Brown, IKEA


48. Sophie Li, IKEA


49. Andreas Sjöberg, IKEA


50. Juliette Sun, IKEA


51. Anna Winblad, IKEA


52. David Ellison, Incorporated Society of British Advertisers


53. Mark Finney, Incorporated Society of British Advertisers


54. Wendy Li, Intel Corporation


55. David Sun, Intel Corporation


56. Isabel Chen, Jaguar Land Rover


57. Xinghua Dong, Jaguar Land Rover


58. Steve Hill, Jaguar Land Rover


59. Zsofia Kalmar-Anand, Johnson & Johnson


60. Kate Keane, Johnson & Johnson


61. Martin King, Johnson & Johnson


62. Nick Sparey, Johnson & Johnson


63. Katalin Spielmann, Johnson & Johnson


64. Nate Swenberg, Johnson & Johnson


65. Liela Liu, Kimberly-Clark Corporation


66. Caroline Devys, LEGO Group


67. James Button, LEGO Group


68. Conny Kalcher, LEGO Group


69. Asmita Dubey, L’Oréal


70. Jee Seon Park, L’Oréal


71. Smriti Shah, L’Oréal


72. Sophie Fonteney, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton


73. Maria Givens, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton


74. May Lam, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton


75. Lionel Lamy, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton


76. Stella Lee, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton


77. David Strome, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton


78. Marc Zander, Mars


79. Rob Rakowitz, Mars


80. Kerry Elsdon, Mastercard


81. Ben Jankowski, Mastercard


82. Christian Ohm, Mazda Motor Corporation


83. John Thekanady, McDonald’s


84. Nicole Kane, McDonald’s


85. Gerry D’Angelo, Mondelēz


86. Prashant Desai, Mondelēz


87. Conor MacLoughlin, Mondelēz


88. Ivelisse Roche, Mondelēz


89. Grace Zhou, Mondelēz


90. Tracy Zhu, Mondelēz


91. Suman Saha, Mother Dairy


92. Anup Mahato, MTS


93. Kris Yang, Nestlé


94. Geraldine Grummer, Orange


95. Russell King, Orange


96. Géraldine Grümmer, Orange


97. Maneesha Khanna, PepsiCo


98. Gaurav Mehta, PepsiCo


99. Carol Wu, Pernod Ricard


100. Sital Banerjee, Philips


101. Sebastian Ackerman, Porsche


102. Manuela Botelho, Portuguese Association of Advertisers


103. Taide Guajardo, Procter & Gamble


104. Effie Sun, Procter & Gamble


105. Ignasi Sanz, Puig


106. Ramin Saher, RB


107. Mei-Ling Rider, Red Bull


108. Buddy Tucker, S. C. Johnson & Son


109. Yvan Goupil, SABMiller


110. Charlie Hiscocks, SABMiller


111. Oliver Lonicer, SABMiller


112. Bernabé Mohedano Cuadrado, Santander


113. Scott Jordan, SAP


114. Kevin Jin, SAP SE


115. Rup Kamal Kalita, SAP SE


116. Sandeep Kumar Nagpal, SAP SE


117. Pilar Navarro, SAP SE


118. Julio Bustos Michavila, SEAT


119. Chris Hayek, Shell


120. Franziska Kaiser, Shell


121. Dharti Chatterjee, Shell


122. Reka Bagoly, Sony


123. Aida Garcia Alvela, Sony


124. Cynthia Yang, Sony


125. Bennie Zhou, Sony


126. Begoña Gómez, Spanish Association of Advertisers


127. Ivan Lopez, Spanish Association of Advertisers


128. Lidia Sanz, Spanish Association of Advertisers


129. Maud Payet, Swarovski


130. Paul Wiedmeier, Swarovski


131. Matthew Hotten, TATA Group


132. Sumeet Pahwa, TATA Group


133. Sonia Serrao, TATA Group


134. Toshal Shenai, TATA Group


135. Nuria De Andrés Santos, Telefonica


136. Charo Gonzalez Escudero, Telefonica


137. Sean Lee, The Coca-Cola Company


138. Leana Less, The Coca-Cola Company


139. Michelle Yang, The Coca-Cola Company


140. Stefani Cohen, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.


141. Rubina Malbari, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.


142. Hara Harakrishnan, Indian Society of Advertisers


143. Marion Thouvignon, TomTom


144. Jacob Van Duijn, TomTom


145. Richard Brooke, Unilever


146. Andrew Coulter, Unilever


147. David Porter, Unilever


148. Paola Saggese, Unilever


149. Didier Beauclair, Union of Advertisers


150. Lily Wang, Visa


151. Paul Evans, Vodafone


152. Neel Pandya, Vodafone


153. Ellie Huijing, Volvo Cars


154. Johanna Riggers, VW Group

For more information, visit the WFA website or contact Matt.