What you need to know:

• New MFA transparency guidelines make more explicit contractual guidelines around how money is being made and adds self-preferencing of adtech stacks to list of potential conflicts of interest to be disclosed.
• Contracts should also include conditions around audits and data access and ownership.

Ahead of the ACCC’s final report into the advertising supply chain, the MFA has updated its transparency guidelines for agencies and advertisers.

Earlier this year the watchdog flagged key concerns around transparency, rebates, data trails and conflicts of interest in Australia’s media agency market. Its interim report in February told marketers to wise up, though the ACCC stopped short of pushing for regulatory intervention.

Yet transparency remains a live issue. Agency leaders privately report that some competitors are still taking zero-fee business – and marketers may or may not be complicit. 

The MFA’s new framework seeks to address those grey areas with unambiguous guidance around contracts intended to protect both brands and agencies.

It states contracts must include “clear explanations of how both parties benefit” and that advertisers and agencies “should seek to fully understand all parts of their contract and seek clarity prior to signing if mutual benefit is not transparent and explicit”. 

While the MFA’s 2015 frameworks outlined rules on conflicts of interest, such as disclosing rebates, mark-ups and value banks, the updated version adds that agencies or their parent groups must also disclose self-preferencing of their own ad tech services within contracts.

Meanwhile, contracts should include specific conditions around audits and how these may be carried out, including access to data.

Data ownership should also be considered and made explicit within contracts, “with a view to affording portability where possible”, per the framework, which has been endorsed by advertiser peak body, the AANA.