The media, marketing and advertising industry appears to have mostly ignored the inquiry into digital platforms Google and Facebook by consumer watchdog the ACCC.
Work done for the Audited Media Association of Australia’s (AMAA) annual Media Trust Research shows the industry caught unawares with the release of the final ACCC report.
The recommendations by the ACCC respond to the substantial market power wielded by the digital platforms, their impact on competition in media and advertising markets and implications for news media businesses, advertisers and consumers.
The consumer watchdog also recommended an inquiry into adtech services and advertising agencies over a lack of price transparency in the complex area of programmatic.
But the industry itself hasn't been paying attention, according to the latest survey.
In the AMAA survey of nearly 498 industry executives, 43% said they had never heard of the ACCC preliminary report into Google, Facebook and the Australian news and advertising sector.
Josanne Ryan, the CEO of AMAA, says the study indicates a large proportion of the industry with a dramatic lack of awareness.
"These recommendations covered not only the global digital platforms, the ACCC also identified specific concerns with the complexity and opacity of the adtech supply chain," she says.
Of the marketers and agency professionals surveyed about the ACCC report, between May and June this year, seven in 10 had little or no awareness of it.
Only three in 10 had read any of the report or about it, with a quarter of marketers reading articles on it, which was twice that of agencies.
A total of 62% agreed with the statement that "government regulation of global digital platforms is inevitable".
However, 43% indicated they had "never heard" of the ACCC Preliminary Report; 49% of agency respondents were in this group with 46% of these being agency senior executives and middle management.
“We have chosen to release a snapshot of our upcoming annual Media Trust Research survey early in light of the ACCC’s releasing the final report of its Digital Platforms Inquiry due to the low level of awareness among the respondents.” Ryan says.
“The industry has now had a wakeup call and no doubt the final report will be compulsory reading given there is to be a twelve-week consultation period as the government steps in to weigh up no less than 23 recommendations from the ACCC.”
Of all respondents who completed the survey, 42% were top executives at a C-suite, GM or MD level, 38% were middle management and 19% junior. A total of 46% of respondents are in “mostly digital roles”.
Ryan says she's concerned at what appears to be complacency in the industry.
“The industry currently falls short on a cohesive approach to ensuring that industry self-regulation is robust and ensures that industry standards are consistently adhered to in digital ad trading,” Ryan says.
The AMAA submitted a paper to the ACCC which outlined efforts by the AMAA to drive discussion and industry wide movement on more robust self-governance including compliance to digital trading standards (with a digital certification programme proposed by the AMAA including an independent audit process).
While other countries have acknowledged the issues by working towards industry frameworks for digital trading (UK, USA, Europe), our industry has not moved towards industry wide compliance,” Ryan said.
The AMAA survey shows that greater transparency is needed:
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