Financial Progression Limited | Marketing Contract Compliance Audit Specialists

Adrian Jenkins FCA, Director, Financial Progression Limited.

Posted on 1 September 2014 by Adrian

‘Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. Trouble is, I don’t know which half.’

Adrian Jenkins knows where it goes.
John Wanamaker, pioneer of modern advertising and marketing techniques, famously hated budgetary black holes. Here at Financial Progression we’re not huge fans of unproductive marketing spend either. Adrian Jenkins and his expert team of finance professionals work with global brands like yours to ensure exemplary budgetary behaviour and contractual compliance from your marketing agencies. Find out more →

Category: Talking Points
Tag: how ad agencies make money

Posted on 30 August 2018 by Adrian

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Update: We’re growing places

financialprogression.co.uk → financialprogression.com

As marketing contract compliance audit specialists, we’re working on a more international basis than ever before — helping some of the world’s biggest brands get full visibility and control over their advertising and media agency spend. To reflect this, we feel it’s a good time to move from our current .co.uk domain to a global .com domain.

So, a heads-up: very soon, this site will move lock, stock and barrel to our new .com domain.

It’ll be business as usual throughout: no scaffolding, no carpet protectors, and nothing for you to do. All the deep insights, tips and marketing compliance anecdotes you expect from Financial Progression will just seamlessly move over to https://www.financialprogression.com.

Category: Talking Points

Posted on 4 December 2017 by Adrian

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Production Transparency – should advertisers outside the US be concerned?

Fourteen months after its landmark report on media transparency, the ANA has delivered another paper that raises concerns over financial transparency and conflicts of interest, this time relating to the US production industry. Following hot on the heels of the announcement at the end of 2016 that the US Department of Justice was investigating production practices, the report casts further doubt over the ethical values held by creative agencies and holding companies when it comes to managing their clients’ money.

Category: Case Studies, Contract Compliance Audits, Talking Points
Tag: ad agency audits, ad agency production costs, agency management, ANA, conflicts of interest, creative agency audits, financial transparency, relationship transparency, trust

Posted on 21 April 2017 by Janis Prescott

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How do I choose the right marketing contract compliance auditor for the job?

You’ve decided to do a marketing contract compliance audit, you’ve discussed whose budget is going to fund it and now you want to find a suitable provider to do the work. Where should you start?

Posted on 23 February 2017 by Janis Prescott

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What a difference 365 days make

As we look back at 2016 and the world of agency relationships…

Category: Contract Compliance Audits, Talking Points
Tag: ad agency audits, ad agency contracts, agency management, conflicts of interest, financial transparency, ICAEW, relationship transparency, trust

Posted on 20 December 2016 by Janis Prescott

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Am I allowed to audit my agency?

Having read “The 105^th thing on your to do list” you will now know what kind of audit you’re looking to conduct. So what’s the next step? Before you go out looking for an auditor, you need to check that you are actually ‘allowed’ to audit your agency and, if you are, what can and can’t be audited.

Posted on 22 September 2016 by Janis Prescott

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The 105th thing on your ‘to do’ list may be the most important…

So imagine the scenario: you’ve got a set marketing budget that seems to be squeezed year-on-year; new opportunities arise that need to be tested; old, well-trodden routes to market need to be sustained; constant evaluations need to be done to ensure you’re nimble and maximizing the opportunities; and your parent company has just issued the (annual) email to say that it’s putting a stop on spending any uncommitted budget at the end of the month. Sound familiar?

Posted on 27 June 2016 by Janis Prescott

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The ANA media transparency report – a marketer’s perspective

Janis Prescott spent 20 years in a wide variety of marketing roles in a blue chip company before joining Financial Progression earlier this year to oversee its marketing activities. Here she offers her perspective on K2 Intelligence’s report into US media transparency for the ANA.

Category: Talking Points
Tag: agency management, ANA, financial transparency, K2 Intelligence, marketing agency audits, marketing procurement, media agency contracts, media transparency, relationship transparency, transparency

Posted on 20 April 2016 by Adrian

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Trust and transparency in client-agency relationships

From the perspective of any marketing contract compliance auditor, the results of the ID Comms 2016 Transparency Survey are music to their ears. For Financial Progression, the results mirror exactly the ethos on which the business was established: namely that the more brands understand the financial realities and business models of agencies, the more readily they will find a mutually beneficial way of working together.

Posted on 1 April 2016 by Adrian

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Is it clear where an agency is making money on your account?

When an agency submits a statement of work for a production job or a media plan to a brand team, you would expect that the amount on the piece of paper you approve represents the whole story. Well, not necessarily. What we have found is that the fees from the brand may only be one of the revenue streams present and they are likely to vary by agency type.

Category: Agency Contract Reviews, Talking Points
Tag: ad agency audits, agency management, financial transparency, media agency audits

Posted on 3 February 2016 by Adrian

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Supplier rebates – how confident are you that your agency is declaring them?

Most brand/agency contracts state that an agency needs to hand over to their client any rebates received from third parties used on their account, whether specific or on a ‘fair share’ basis (e.g. annual volume bonuses). The question is how do you know that you are getting all your rebates back? Our experience tells us that brand teams get short changed more often than they realise. The only way to really know whether you are getting all your rebates back is to do a ‘contract compliance’ or ’financial’ audit. In this article we explore a slightly unusual situation we were faced with recently when doing just that at a large agency.