Samsung lays off employees after an internal audit
In Spring 2019, Samsung Electronics Co, a South Korean tech giant, audited its American marketing department for any internal policies violations concerning dealings with business partners and following that laid off a number of employees. While routine audits is a common practice, they have been on the rise recently due to extremely topical transparency issues. As you might remember, in 2016 the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) revealed a study by K2 Intelligence on behind-the-scene rebates and media buying processes in the US, that dropped like a bomb in the marketing industry community setting in motion the FBI investigation and dramatic changes. According to ANA’s “Trust Report” the trust between clients and agencies has declined by 28% over the last three years. To deal with this problem some major advertisers established in-house marketing teams that would act in the best of their interests, that’s exactly what Procter&Gamble did and managed to save $750 mln on advertising in 2018. ANA also founded a Trust Consortium that should set new standards for the industry and achieve necessary level of transparency in digital media supply chain. Among spheres that were audited as a part of this internal probe are dealings between marketing department… Read more »
