Years of UK media evaluation for the widest possible range of advertisers, proved that large media budgets and cheap media buys don’t go together.

We then reached the same conclusion across Europe. And then we went to the US and found exactly the same.

Yet the media buyers claimed otherwise and just got bigger and bigger. In just 5 years the largest six UK buying points gained market share from 69% in 2003 to 79% in 2007 and by 2008 up to 83%

But now we have the independent evidence and it’s the large media buyers who agree.

The impartial source is The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) review of the ITV Contract Rights Renewal (CRR) Undertakings. Scan these verbatim highlights from sections 5.61 to 5.68 and you will have the material to spot the Media Madness mutterings of the large buyers

1. There are a number of reasons why buyers’ increased size may be of limited use in restraining ITV’s price increases

2. The extent to which ITV can penalise the media buyer increases as the media buyer gets larger

3. Increased size means switching a given portion of their spend away is harder

4. Media buyers may have limited incentive to exert their countervailing buying power

5. Media buyers have little incentive to react to price increase by ITV

6. It seems counter intuitive that smaller media buyers have more buyer than larger ones – this is contrary to the trend of consolidation

7. The incentive of media buyers to exercise that buyer power may be limited by the way they are remunerated

Next time your media buyer tells you it’s all about scale refer him to his words in Section 5.61 to 5.68 and tell him he’s in the Media Madness house. Scale benefits the buyer’s cost base and hinders his ability to deliver for the advertiser

Getting great media value is about putting money at risk and having brilliant negotiators. Scale just inhibits the buyers’ ability to move – and now they agree!