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The Danish Viking isn’t afraid to ‘tell it how it is’. With his refreshing honesty and impressive ability to find sound and effective workable solutions to big problems, it’s no wonder he’s worked with over 350 brands across 80 territories worldwide - representing a business value in excess of $25bn.

Driven by an innate desire to make an impact on the ever-changing landscape of media and its’ dynamic trading mechanics, and address new issues facing clients, Morten set up glue2020 and successfully pioneered numerous new models, processes and systems including; a new media audit system (eliminating the need for the traditional format), sound content/asset monetization models and search marketing measurement.

Day-to-day, he helps Marketers and Procurement achieve significant savings and returns, negotiating critical commercial deals, managing client/agency pitches and focusing overall on creating big step improvements across the board.

Morten spent 17 years garnering marketing knowledge and experience from all sides of the fence; as a client, as an agency director (media and creative) and as an independent consultant. Client experience includes over 30 Fortune 100 companies across Retail, Gaming, FMCG, Finance, Transportation, Telecoms, Automotive, and Entertainment.

An inspiring brand evangelist who loves finance and creativity in equal measure. Lucy is a breath of fresh air for the consulting industry, and there’s a 'feel good' factor about every project she works on.

Her multi-disciplinary experience as a Client, Agency, Consultant and Company Owner has given her formidable breadth of vision and objectivity. Lucy began her career in media planning at McCann Erickson, later moving into auditing and consulting. Her first project in this new role was to deliver a $1bn global agency review for a leading Entertainment and Technology client.

Taking and applying this knowledge to the Diesel headquarters in Italy, Lucy became Head of Global Media at 26yrs - promptly initiating a marketing restructure; creating a brand-led comms-planning process, reviewing global media agency arrangements, driving new co-promotion and branding opportunities and ultimately achieving a performance-led media and marketing company culture throughout 65 markets worldwide.

Understanding there's life outside Fashion & Luxury, Lucy can boast sector experience in Automotive, Entertainment, Finance, Technology, Telecoms, Music and FMCG.

Music is her other passion, managing award winning artist Zee Gachette (www.zstarmusic.com)

A strong advocate against consultancy b***s***, Gerry has a way with words and what he says is always on the money.

An impressive individual with phenomenal experience who is regarded as one of the industry’s leading experts in applying procurement skills and practices into the marketing space.

Gerry spent 22years at Procter & Gamble as the Global Director of Marketing and Media Procurement and Operations. While at P&G, Gerry grew the marketing procurement organization more than tenfold, and ultimately directed the activities of nearly 200 marketing procurement professionals worldwide, covering nearly every area of marketing spend. During his brief stint at one of the world's largest marketeers, Gerry was a key decision-maker for over $3B marketing and media spend (ad agencies, media, promotion, public affairs, design, digital and interactive, research and measurement, retail, branding, and production).

He also served as a committee member for the Association of National Advertising (ANA) and a featured speaker at the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).

Gerry holds an engineering degree from West Point, has served as the executive director of a national nonprofit association. He and his wife Sue are empty nesters living in Cincinnati, with three adult kids in their twenties.

Russel must be one of very few 'welcomed iron fists in a velvet glove' in this field. Incredibly connected to, and highly respected by all the global agency key players, whilst being a firm believer in making an agency work hard to earn its keep. Fair and objective, factual and pretty good fun too.

Russel has unparalleled experience in leading complex global agency pitches and is considered an inspirational leader and educator in the field of Relationship Management - driving a strong marriage between cost, creative and operational KPIs. In his capacity as a glue2020 partner, he also spearheads the use of the world's leading decision-making management tool, Decideware, which he has rolled out globally for many clients.

Offering a wealth of knowledge in the areas of ethnic marketing, global marketing, integrated marketing and technology marketing, Russel is also an active supporter of industry trade associations and works on a variety of projects with the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), American Marketing Association (AMA), Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA).

Russel and his family live in a Los Angeles‐area beach community. He holds a BS degree in Journalism from Ohio University and is a frequent guest lecturer at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Annie, our resident multi-lingual data analyst, has media in her blood. She has a natural gift for working vast and complex databases, and an invaluable knowledge of agency operations from a performance management perspective.

With 14 years of solid agency experience servicing an impressive list of global and regional bluechip clients in as many as 80 markets at any given time. Annie's sector experience includes; Finance, Automotive, Entertainment, Broadcast, Phamaceutical, Travel, Insurance, Telecoms and FMCG.

Before joining glue2020, Annie worked at five of the largest media agency networks in the world, as an international media planner/buyer, researcher and performance manager, responsible for client billings in excess of $20bn .

Annie is four hands, four calculators and one big smile. A phenomenal eye for detail, naturally inquisitive and an incredibly smart networker.

Mother of one, Annie holds a BA in Direct Marketing Specilization and a BTS in Business Management.

Jacob is an ambitious, and undoubtedly visionary, search engine and eCommerce expert and entrepreneur. Pioneering the SEM industry in the late '90s with his start-up (Notebene.net) quickly becoming a strong publicly listed company (now part of the Netbooster Group).

Jacob has serviced international high profile clients in Travel, Retail, Finance, FMCG, Entertainment, Property and Non-Profit with Search Marketing, Online Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, E-mail Marketing and eCommerce programmes.

In response to search budgets rocketing, Jacob has co-developed a proprietary SEO/SEM performance benchmarking tool helping glue2020 clients achieve gigantic ROI improvements.

Jacob is often called upon as a speaker and commentator to share his insights and controversial truths about online intelligence, data ownership and the future of SEM for advertisers at major internet conferences, recently presenting at SMX in San Josè (Spring 2012).

Jacob is Danish, has lived in Italy, Spain and the US and is now based in Switzerland with his wife and two daughters.

Firstly, let me be open and upfront about this piece. Our company, glue2020, provides a service which helps advertisers recover large outstanding rebates of money from their media agencies. Sales pitch over.

“So do I really need to read another piece on rebates and transparency” you could ask. The quick and honest answer is that you really don’t – instead just check out our 10-step self-help action plan which should cover most issues when it comes to transparency.

If, however, you’ve followed the debate created by the recent WFA article, then you may also agree that (too) many people have jumped on the novel transparency train, agreeing that rebates are a major client concern and something needs to be done about it.

Having dealt with transparency and recovery for advertisers for well over a decade, I’m less than impressed seeing the black and white views that some senior industry folks continue to bring to the table. Knowing from the inside how agencies and clients struggle with the issue on a daily basis, I’m astonished by the lack of perspective, nous and workable solutions that these same commentators offer.

So here’s a simple 10-step action plan that should help any advertiser address the root course of transparency without acting like a bull in a china shop. Most actions are about enforcing or improving media agency contracts, as getting this right eliminates most questions related to who owns what in terms of rebates and other agency volume bonuses.

Number 1: Clarify the role of your agency

In most international media markets, agencies act as Principals in law and not as Agents (the US, France and a few other markets are exceptions to global practice). Whilst this may be a rather technical point to most readers, this particular point is massively important as it determines who owns the rebates, i.e. if the agency is Principal they can effectively do what they want with the money (if not stipulated otherwise in the client-agency contract obviously). Therefore, first step to verify the legal position of your agencies for each market, and then check that this interpretation conforms with local customs and practice. Once clear, this should reduce any knee-jerk reactions from people who don’t know what they’re talking about, and you'll have a much clearer view on what’s potentially recoverable and what’s not.

Number 2: Define rebates clearly

The first aspect in any rebate conversation with your agency should be about the definition of rebates. Once agreed, your contract could then cover off all the variants, including Agency Volume Bonuses, Agency Volume Rebates, extra-tipos, extra-primas, end-of-year discounts, surcommissions, bonuses, etc.. When doing this, be aware that prompt, upfront and pre-payment discounts don't count towards rebates (specific advantageous payment terms are more reliant on client's behaviour, and can be "earned" if adhered to).

Number 3: Align base for calculation

Once you’ve defined what’s considered a rebate (and what’s not), you need to make sure that rebate value is calculated using the same base all over the world. As this is a relatively straight forward discussion, your agency should be able to clarify this in a jiffy. Things to look out for here are whether the base for rebate calculations reflects local terminology, i.e. gross, net, net net, net client etc. Once set out in the contract, there should be little room for confusion and misinterpretation. Simple step - yet helps focus the conversation immediately.

Number 4: Look beyond your operating agency

With the agency world adjusting its operating structures all the time, it’s ever more critical that clients secure access to the benefits negotiated from agencies and entities which operate behind the scenes (i.e. beyond the immediate operating agency). If you have the right contract in place, rebates can be extracted from across the entire value chain; agency affiliates, subsidiaries, legal media buying entities, partners, barter companies, digital trading desks, admin companies (financial intermediaries), holdings companies, and any other entity involved in handling your agency’s media buying either practically or financially. A word of warning; it's much harder to gain full access to this plethora of companies without the relevant contractual T&Cs in place, so getting external help can be useful.

Number 5: Maximise central vs. local opportunities

Once rebate definitions and scope are clear, it is time to enter negotiations. Due to the complexity of the rebate issue, we generally prefer clients to handle rebate negotiations centrally – even if return of cash/value happens locally. Agencies are more open to this approach so it helps get everyone aligned, which is critical on such a delicate issue. Handling negotiations centrally also gives all parties involved the opportunity to pro-actively manage any gaps that may occur between what’s being offered by the agency and what is really being received locally. For the few markets where rebates cannot be returned to clients (less half a dozen worldwide), then a centrally managed system will help circumvent this issue.

Number 6: Timely recovery of cash/value

The old concept of "we pay back the following year once we've received the full amount from vendors" doesn't always reflect what happens in local markets. Return dates vary by media and by market, so make sure your contract is clear on repayment frequency and dates.

Number 7: Handling budget and media mix changes

With rebates varying by vendor and volume, it is important that clients and their agencies establish a clear start point on a per medium, per market basis at least. A simple excel sheet stipulating budget and rebate levels for each media (sometimes down to vendor by vendor basis) is often sufficient here. Once a baseline is agreed, clients should make sure that the rebate calculation system is flexible enough to accommodate and (fast) track both budget and media mix changes on an ongoing basis.

Number 8: What’s the best currency?

Going beyond the black and white “100% returned in cash” mentality remains the single biggest opportunity for clients to improve the value due from rebates. Our experience shows that integrating other valuable assets in the negotiation can really bring massive additional value to clients' media budgets. From a contractual standpoint, clients should make sure that both cash and value-add is identified and quantified, and it should be clear how all value is accounted for financially and admin wise.

Number 9: Beware of local gentlemen agreements

It's not unusual to discover that local clients have over-ruled international contractual arrangements with local gentlemen’s agreements (often exchanging rebates for free space). Unfortunately, unless this agreement is monitored down to the smallest detail, this free space is inherently going to be poor quality vs the “paid for” space. When the agency is then asked to justify this delivery, they often inflate its value significantly (and unrealistically). The best way to get around this eventuality is to stipulate in the contract that any local arrangements affecting transparency and free space will have to be squared off with the central clients (and/or the external third party).

Number 10: Reporting results back into the organization

One of the hardest jobs for Marketing and Procurement is to report cash and value-add back to risk adverse corporate management. To address this, clients should work with their agencies on addressing this issue, with the outcome being a clear and detailed plan showing how much is owed, and how the recovery will take place. We usually recommend that reporting should happen on a quarterly basis to ensure potential gaps/opportunities are identified early on, and corrective action is agreed and implemented.

If your company needs some help in managing and negotiating a more transparent relationship with your agencies, please feel free to contact us for a confidential talk.