Procter & Gamble chief brand officer Marc Pritchard has been on a crusade to overhaul its digital advertising

in recent years, slashing its spending and piloting new ways of working with ad agencies.
In his most direct assault on the TV industry yet, Pritchard dismissed the decades-old "antiquated system" of

TV media buying, saying that a better name for the "upfronts" might be the "FOMOs."
During a keynote during the Association of National Advertisers Media & Measurement conference held virtually

on Wednesday, Pritchard said that the upfronts were nothing but a mechanism designed to give the networks and

ad agencies a leg-up over marketers based on the sheer access to information — contributing to inflated rates

despite declining ratings.
He also said P&G, the world's No. 1 advertiser, would continue to prioritize direct deals with media partners

and hold platforms accountable on measurement, accountability, and controversial content while pushing for a

cross-platform media measurement system.
Pritchard slammed the upfronts process, where he said agencies collected budget estimates for the networks and

broadcasters set rates and availability based on "a full view of the entire spending forecast." The system was

predicated on "information asymmetry," where media companies have the advantage because they had the most

information, he said.
He added that it was almost always wasteful for marketers to negotiate such bulk deals and hurt viewers, as

brands almost always buy too much inventory, leading to people being inundated with too many ads.
"The system must change. A level playing field means planning and negotiating when it fits the business –

that's calendar year for most," he said. "It means flexibility to buy media more in real-time – without

penalty – to adjust to market conditions. And it means a balanced exchange of information."
Pritchard's comments come as upfront TV ad spending in the US is expected to drop a whopping 27.1% in the

2020-2021 season to $14.78 billion, a $5.5 billion difference year-on-year, according to Insider

Intelligence's eMarketer.
Instead, P&G has been pursuing more direct deals and programmatic TV buying with networks and other media

companies, including minority-owned media, he said. He listed 15 recent initiatives that P&G collaborated with

TV networks and media companies in the past 100 days, many of them with social justice themes and other

causes, expanding on an effort he kickstarted last year.
It's also limited agencies of record to fixed retainers for planned work each year so it can work with a

changing roster of agencies. That change has reduced fixed retainer fees while producing good creative,

Pritchard earlier told Business Insider.
Source : Business Insider