Industry Leaders Practice for Upfront Negotiations While Debating Key Issues at 4As Conference

This week, the representative trade group of the advertising agency world, the 4As, wrapped up its two-day conference, 4As Decisions 20/20, in Washington D.C.  The conference was specifically focused on the media services side of the ad business.  The media services area has seen and continues to experience foundational, operational, transformational change and fundamental business model challenges.  Much of the conference was spent discussing ways to earn back client trust in the face of some well-publicized missteps in the early programmatic days, continued discussions around brand safety and transparency, diversity initiatives, the "in-housing" phenomenon, the shift towards data-driven media buys and business outcomes over awareness as currency.