Four months after the Global Alliance for Responsible Media was disbanded under scrutiny from Congress, conservative lawmakers continue to put pressure on advertising agencies over their brand safety issues. Following the announcement of a merger between Omnicom and Interpublic Group, the House Judiciary Committee is seeking answers to how they are approaching ad targeting now that GARM has been discontinued.
Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) is asking the chief executives of Omnicom and Interpublic to provide Congress with what precautions, if any, are being put in place or have already been put in place to ensure that the new consolidated ad agency giant doesn’t “use its consolidated market power to replicate GARM’s anticompetitive behavior.”
Jordan is also asking whether either of the agencies is part of other industry initiatives or groups dedicated to brand safety. He is also asking both agencies to turn over any documents or communications they had with the World Federation of Advertisers relating to GARM, including those related or referring to brand safety and the categorization, monetization, demonetization, moderation, or elimination of speech.
The World Federation of Advertisers announced in August that it would shut down GARM, the group it created to help marketers avoid placing their ads alongside content they find objectionable. The standards had been under increasing scrutiny in Washington where conservative media outlets — including talk radio and podcasts — have said GARM was being used to keep them off ad buys. WFA said those allegations misconstrued the standard’s purpose and the controversy caused “a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances.”
Jordan has been putting GARM under the spotlight, including sending letters to more than 40 advertisers, including such major spenders as McDonald’s, General Motors, PepsiCo and Verizon, as part of its investigation into the use of GARM. The House Committee released a report in July that said it had uncovered some emails that seem to provide evidence that conservative media were being redlined.
“Through its oversight, the Committee discovered collusive behavior that deprived consumers of a diverse offering of platforms and content online,” Jordan tells agency executives in his letter. He says they uncovered GARM efforts to label conservative outlets and platforms as harmful content and deprive those entities of advertising revenue. He says that “blacklist” included The Joe Rogan Experience podcast for allegedly spreading misinformation.
Omnicom and Interpublic Group announced this month they plan a merger in a deal that will create a super-agency with nearly $25 billion in annual revenue. The New York Post reported the deal could come under scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission once the Trump administration comes into office over its use of the content brand safety rating service NewsGuard.
Jordan referenced the pending merger in his GARM inquiry, saying both companies were “founding members” of the “advertising cartel” that he believes engaged in collusion. “The proposed merger of these companies will combine horizontal competitors with a history of collusion, increasing the likelihood of coordinated effects post-merger,” he says.