Marc Pritchard, the Chief Brand Officer for Proctor and Gamble (P&G) in charge of digital media recently fired a shot across the bow of the agencies they do business with and the social media channels where they buy ads. In short, he critiqued the fraud and abuse rampant in how agencies report statistics and results from this advertising, and challenged everyone to do better.

“If we can invent technology for driverless cars and virtual reality, we can find a way to track and verify media accurately,” Pritchard added. “The days of giving digital a pass are over – it’s time to grow up. It’s time for action.”

The full article is here but has also been covered widely in the marketing and advertising press. P&G spends huge sums on digital media -over $4 billion in 2015, of which at least a third is going to digital media. With those kinds of numbers, it’s obvious why accountability is important.

This topic caught our attention at Flonomics because of our role in helping our customers understand what is working with their own marketing. Without knowing traffic, it is impossible to understand if any marketing effort is having an impact on sales. A full analyst can tease out the interplay between different media on foot traffic, web traffic, and ultimately revenue. We help our customers hold their agencies and media accountable, which creates better value for all the players.