P&G cuts digital ad spend by $200m over viewership worries

LONDON: Procter & Gamble, the world’s biggest advertiser, last week revealed it had cut digital advertising spend by $200 million because of concerns about viewership data.
It has piled pressure on digital media companies to be more transparent with their viewership data to better understand how many people see their ads.
“Transparency shone a spotlight on reality and we learned valuable lessons which are driving profound change,” Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer said at the Association of National Advertisers’ media conference in Orlando, Florida last week, Reuters reported.
“With transparent viewability data, we learned that the average view time for an ad on a mobile newsfeed is 1.7 seconds — little more than a glance — pushing us to innovate.”
Pritchard revealed that new advertising consumption data had convinced it to reduce digital spending to several big media companies by 20 percent to 50 percent last year.
The consumer goods conglomerate cut digital spending by more $100 million between April and June of 2017.