CANNES – Even as the Association of National Advertisers exerts pressure on the digital media supply chain to clean up its act, the organization is taking matters into its own hands by testing an alternative digital supply chain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the digital media supply chain, as an enterprise, the jury is still out because we still have a LUMAscape<\/a> which is as complex as Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity,\u201d says ANA CEO Bob Liodice during a break at the Cannes Lions<\/a> International Festival of Creativity.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd because of that, marketers don\u2019t understand how to best leverage that supply chain to their advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n As proof of the extent of dysfunction, he says that only 25 to 40 cents on every digital dollar reaches the consumer. \u201cThat\u2019s awful. We need to find a way to improve that productivity. We haven\u2019t gotten there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n The ANA has been working<\/a> with Digital Content Next to support TrustX<\/a>, a programmatic advertising marketplace designed to help maximize marketers\u2019 digital advertising expenditures. \u201cThe early read is that we can get twenty percent improvement, but there\u2019s so much more work to be done,\u201d says Liodice.<\/p>\n This year, the Cannes Festival is an opportunity for the ANA to \u201cglobalize\u201d its CMO Masters Circle initiative. It\u2019s composed of 1,000 executives from leading brands across ANA member companies who are trying to help solve what Liodice<\/a> calls \u201cthe universal problem in our industry, which is growth.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Liodice, 50% of Fortune 500 companies have declining after-tax profits while 40% have declining revenues. Masters Circle<\/a> has crafted a 12-point strategic and is \u201cbuilding machine around that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n He says Cannes recognized that the program is working and \u201cthey thought that this was a good opportunity to spread that message on a global basis.\u201d Some 20 to 25 of the leading CMO\u2019s around the world will \u201cdiscuss the issue, come together and decide what it is that we want to do to attack the growth agenda worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the ANA\u2019s other ongoing initiatives is providing its members with more of a grounding in various futuristic technologies that have marketing implications, like artificial intelligence, blockchain and virtual reality. To this end, the ANA recently acquired the Data & Marketing Association, which was founded in 2017 as the Direct Marketing Association, as Advertising Age reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n