A Diligent Eye is an independent auditing company specialized in advertising and media expenditure audits. We perform contract reviews, vendor reviews, audit purchasing data and recommend purchasing controls, optimization of advertising expenditures.
Introducing a new methodology, we believe that we can achieve better results than an audit executed internally by the advertiser.
Trust and truth are key factors in a healthy client-agency relationship. Truth has long been our core belief.
With close to 20 years experience in the media and advertising industries, we have a deep knowledge of the “ tricks of the trade”.
Now more than ever companies are looking for ways to cut costs and focus on efforts to maintain or improve margins and profits. A Diligent Eye can help maximize the value of your advertising and media investments through our focused advertising and media audits.
There are many components to advertising and marketing costs which together create a successful business building tool. The complexity of the changing marketing and advertising environments demand that advertisers periodically audit their advertising and media agencies. Advertising agencies and media buying agencies have all experienced difficult economic times and as a result have merged operations, downsized or otherwise reduced staff and cut costs, all contributing to the real possibility or likelyhood that mistakes have been made or maximized media value has not been acheived for many advertisers.
Our audits are designed to address these concerns and uncover lost advertising and media value associated with inefficiencies and errors created as a result of the current economic environment.
Advertising costs are usually comprised of many different components, all of which are complex in structure often not understood by internal auditors delegated by the clients advertising and media agencies.
Moreover, the operating environment of many advertising agencies and media planning and buying agencies are affected by employee turnover, corporate integration issues (software conversions and cultural changes), staffing shortages, and inadequate training which all contribute to the probability that clients advertising spendings are not fully accounted for.
A Diligent Eye can help you determine if you are receiving maximum value of your advertising and media expenditures by:
> controlling the contract components (salary fee and overhead multiplier);
> controlling costs invoiced to client, checking vendor invoices and review invoices for errors;
> reviewing purchasing and procurement processes to determine adequacy of bidding process and vendor selection;
> reviewing vendor invoices to determine if all vendor discounts have been taken advantage of and were properly passed on the client.
Our audits and reviews are developed using a comprehensive approach and based on a deep understanding of the advertising and media industries.
Besides auditing of advertising and media spending, we can also:
> review your current contract(s) with advertising agencies and or media providers to help ensure that you are paying a fair price for the services you are receiving;
> benchmark your contract with industry standard in your market;
> contact suppliers to independently check bidding;
> assist you in agency pitch and contract review
Trustworthy financial information is key. This has been my core belief as a CFO.
Czech advertising agencies were ranking themselves based on a self-declaratory basis. This led to a certain level of “inflation”. In 2002, I published an article in Strategie, “Komunikace čísla, čísla Komunikace” (communicating numbers, the numbers of Communication) evidencing the gap between reality and published numbers. This analysis was based on an approximation based on headcount and the average revenue generation by agency employees.
This “inflation” was not limited to the Czech republic. Soon aftwerwards, since the development of the internet allowed financial analysts to aggregate figures from all around the world, the communication network forbid their local branches to publish figures related to revenue.
The Czech agencies, still needing a ranking, resolved to an alternative methodology, both untransparent and complex, using the theoretical revenue on the media spending of their clients.
In 2012, still the heral of truth, I proposed, in an article written in cooperation with Jaroslav Krupka of Marketing & Media, a new methodology to replace this ranking. In “Agentury lze porovnat” (It is possible to rank the agencies), I proposed to used the publicly available financial statements of the agencies and, once more, approximate the revenue based on a mix of billings, staff costs and profit to estimate the relative size of the agencies in the Czech market. This led to a change of rules adopted by the Association of Communication Agencies (AKA).
Remi Diligent has close to 20 years experience in the media and advertising service industry, being CFO at Lion Communications, for Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett in the Czech republic, at Euro-RSCG Middle East and MPG Middle East, at DDB Prague (a branch of Omnicom group), Ogilvy group Czech republic.
See more on LinkedIn.
A Diligent Eye
Remi Marie-Bernard Diligent
Milady Horakove 862/72, 17000 Praha 7, Czech republic
Mail: remi.diligent (AT) aDiligentEye.com
Phone: (+420) 737.346.978
Company Id.: 01939696
Tax Id: CZ6705122930