What we do

In today’s crowded media landscape, creating a campaign that cuts through the noise and reaches the right consumers, at the right time, can be challenging. That’s why we work with advertisers and their agencies to identify the right opportunities and maximize impact.

Our modern, forensic and fact-based approach harnesses the power of world-class talent and proprietary technology. Along with our innovative benchmarking capabilities, this means we are confident in our ability to empower our clients to drive higher media value and media-led impact on business performance.

We are 100% director-owned and with no affiliations with any media agencies or owners, so you can be sure that our advice and action is centred on what is best for you. All our analytics, audits and consulting processes are tailored to the individual needs of each of our clients, allowing us to help you meet your specific objectives and media standards: we do not believe in a one size fits all approach.

Media performance audit

Regular, thorough media performance audits ensure that media agencies are buying the right media, at the right prices and in the right places to ensure your communications are reaching the right people, at the right time. This in turn will drive higher value from your media investments and maximize the impact that media has on business performance. At ECI Media Management we audit all media channels, including TV, Out of Home, Print and Digital: our pioneering digital approach includes sophisticated analysis of programmatic activity. Once an audit has been carried out, we use our forensic analysis to provide actionable insights and targets for the agency, defining the right KPIs for the client’s goals. Our unique, proprietary tools Target Mark^® and OnTarget^® allow us to ensure that we can provide the most forensic analysis and benchmarking.

Financial compliance audit

An effective financial compliance audit helps clients to ensure transparency, open-book costing and financial compliance within their media agency. At ECI Media Management, we achieve this by initiating systems and procedures for effective cost control; by policing and controlling compliance; and by providing audit services to ensure that our clients’ policies relating to the financial aspects of agency relationships are adhered to. Financial audits involve an extensive examination of contract language, system-generated reports, third-party source documentation, manual reconciliations and invoice line items, delivering defined value outputs for our clients.

Pitch management

The key to running a successful pitch and selecting the best agency partner to meet your marketing goals is a reliable review and selection process which cuts through exaggerated claims and allows a clear view of what each participant can deliver. ECI Media Management’s tried-and-tested seven-stage media review process has been honed over many years of managing and participating in pitches – many of our specialists come from client- and agency-side, so they know what to look for and what to evaluate.

The client can ‘pick and mix’ the stages of the process that they require support with; this could be full support at each stage or simply analysis of agency submissions. The analysis process is deep and forensic and uses our Target Value® process and tools to deliver comparisons between competing agencies and the client’s historical efficiencies. The process covers both the strategic and tactical dimensions of media performance.

Contract consultancy

In order to ensure that agencies always work in the best interests of their client – with transparency and rigor – fully comprehensive contracts are essential. At ECI Media Management, our experts have deep experience in reviewing master agreements and identifying risk areas. In addition, we advise on content and data ownership rights to ensure clients secure best-in-class agreements in line with industry changes and developments.

Typically, contractual development and target-setting will include looking at the following; general fee structure adaptations, performance-related model development and the revision of targets each year in light of actual delivery. Our rigorous, tried-and-tested assessment process is designed to each client’s specific requirements, often including:

Global and local interpretation of adjustments in the agency contract based on the planned investment levels and service requirements each year
A review of transparency, management of commissions, agency volume rebates, annual inflation/deflation mitigation.
Independent second opinion on team structure/processes to secure optimum set-up.
We also work with clients to ensure they contain agency obfuscation on data and content rights in their contracts. This allows clients to own their data and monitor its ongoing usage, irrespective of any future agency changes.

Our proprietary tools

In order to provide the most forensic and thorough analysis of our clients’ media performance, we have developed a set of unique and proprietary tools: Target Mark^® and OnTarget^®.

Target Mark®

Target Mark^® is a sophisticated diagnostic benchmarking process which is fundamental to our approach to media performance audit. This system – and its scoring mechanism TMI^ⓒ – are proprietary tools only available to ECI and provide the most forensic TV audit on the market. The benchmarking of media cost and quality performance in today’s media markets requires a dynamic system that can handle the differences in trading bases that operate in different markets, and can identify the specific areas that create value. Target Mark^® combines a full analysis of all airtime and commercial break possibilities, together with real pool price information to reveal value opportunities by adapting the client’s airtime strategy. The balance is determined by local market trading practices.

Client benefit: Target Mark^® is a fully dynamic model that audits all the advertiser’s marketing strategies. It depends not on a price average, but on a pool that contains a mix of high and low prices. This tool forecasts future campaigns precisely, dramatically increasing the quality of advertising over time.

OnTarget®

OnTarget^® is the only online audit methodology that audits programmatic performance. It includes both the key metrics of media marketing value: cost efficiency and quality effectiveness. Each is scored and benchmarked versus robust and sophisticated methodologies. OnTarget^® leads the market by benchmarking on average 85%-100% of all online investments, which is unique in the industry. It covers display and mobile; banners, videos and takeovers, social, programmatic, direct deals, tech costs, audience data and search.

Client benefit: OnTarget^® quantifies the efficiency of advertisers’ online media buying in terms of cost efficiency and media space efficiency. We leverage a powerful combination of direct database comparisons and econometric models to evaluate each online media buy. We dive as deep as the data allows and normally benchmark more than 90% of investments across all forms of online media, so that our clients can act with confidence on the findings and recommendations.