日本廣告巨擘電通卷入造假丑聞

　　When Toyota launched a quirky Twitter campaign depicting the car parts of its new Prius hybrid using anime girls earlier this year, the digital advertising impact was instant. The oddity and boldness attracted young Japanese users of social media that had not been effectively targeted by Toyota’s traditional, celebrity-heavy TV commercials. As with almost all of Toyota’s ads, the campaign’s creator was Dentsu.

　　豐田(Toyota)今年早些時(shí)候在Twitter上發(fā)布一個(gè)古怪的廣告——用動(dòng)漫少女描繪其新款普銳斯(Prius)混合動(dòng)力車的部件，該數(shù)字廣告的影響立竿見影。這種怪異和大膽吸引了日本年輕的社交媒體用戶，而他們正是豐田傳統(tǒng)上依賴名人效應(yīng)的電視廣告從未有效觸及過的群體。和豐田幾乎所有廣告一樣，這則廣告的設(shè)計(jì)公司是電通(Dentsu)。

　　The Prius tweets were not part of the overcharging scandal that shook Japan’s most powerful advertising agency last week. But it was not coincidental that Toyota was the company that discovered the irregularities.

　　普銳斯在Twitter上的廣告與最近撼動(dòng)這家日本最強(qiáng)大的廣告公司的收費(fèi)過高丑聞無關(guān)。但是豐田發(fā)現(xiàn)電通的違規(guī)行為并非巧合。

　　The revelation followed a meticulous analysis of digital ad impact by a company grappling to connect with a home market that has shown declining interest in owning cars. The analysis was disappointing, prompting the automaker to question if whether Dentsu was placing the digital ads properly.

　　正在艱難試圖與表現(xiàn)出購車意愿下滑的本土市場(chǎng)溝通的豐田，對(duì)數(shù)字廣告的影響進(jìn)行了細(xì)致分析，結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)上述問題。分析結(jié)果令人失望，使得這家汽車制造商質(zhì)疑電通是否妥善投放了數(shù)字廣告。

　　Since that first complaint from Toyota in July, Dentsu has identified 633 suspected cases of overcharging, amounting to at least $2.3m and affecting 111 clients. Among them were 14 incidents where ads were not placed at all and other cases of incorrect placement periods and falsified reporting of ad performance.

　　自從豐田于7月提交首份投訴以來，電通確認(rèn)了633例疑似收費(fèi)過高的情況，涉及金額至少230萬美元，影響111家客戶。其中有14例的廣告根本沒有投放，其他情況涉及不正確的投放時(shí)間和廣告效果報(bào)告作假。

　　The scandal involves performance-based ads — a popular tool that allows advertisers to target specific types of consumers and pay fees depending on how much business was generated. These ads were supposed to offer advertisers greater transparency and make it easier to measure effectiveness. In practice, companies have struggled to judge whether these ads on websites and mobile devices have the desired impact.

　　此次丑聞涉及基于效果的廣告——這是一種較為流行的廣告類型，可以讓廣告商針對(duì)特定類型消費(fèi)者，并根據(jù)商業(yè)效果支付費(fèi)用。這些廣告本應(yīng)該為廣告商提供更高的透明度，并且更容易衡量廣告效果。但在實(shí)踐中，公司很難判斷這些在網(wǎng)站和移動(dòng)設(shè)備上投放的廣告是否產(chǎn)生了預(yù)期效果。

　　The story is not uniquely Japanese. The Dentsu discovery came days after Facebook admitted a mistake in measuring the time users spent viewing video ads on its social network.

　　這種情況不只出現(xiàn)在日本。在電通事件曝出前數(shù)日，F(xiàn)acebook承認(rèn)在測(cè)算用戶在其社交網(wǎng)站上觀看視頻廣告的時(shí)間上存在錯(cuò)誤。

　　The US ad industry is addressing concerns that ad agencies had been accepting cash rebates from media companies without informing their clients. There are also cases of online advertising slots that are never seen by consumers due to fraud.

　　美國(guó)廣告業(yè)正在應(yīng)對(duì)廣告公司在不通知客戶的情況下收取媒體公司現(xiàn)金回扣的問題。同時(shí)還存在在線廣告根本沒有被消費(fèi)者看到的欺詐行為。

　　But in Japan, concerns about opaqueness are heightened by the close ties among ad agencies, TV broadcasters and other media companies, which makes price negotiations less transparent.

　　但是在日本，人們對(duì)于廣告業(yè)不透明的擔(dān)憂因廣告公司、電視廣播公司和其他媒體公司之間的緊密聯(lián)系而加劇，這種格局使得價(jià)格談判更加不透明。

　　Dentsu controls one-quarter of Japan’s annual $61bn advertising market, and its domination of lucrative sponsorship slots such as the Olympics has made it difficult for dissatisfied clients to publicly voice their concerns.

　　日本廣告市場(chǎng)的規(guī)模達(dá)到每年610億美元，而電通控制著其中的四分之一。同時(shí)，它主導(dǎo)著奧運(yùn)會(huì)等利潤(rùn)豐厚的贊助時(shí)段，這使得對(duì)其不滿的客戶很難公開表示擔(dān)憂。

　　That puts the onus on companies to toughen their scrutiny of agency management of digital ads, says Yumi Tanaka, JPMorgan analyst. Dentsu has promised that a more independent division inside the company will monitor the performance data of digital ads in question. But that still lacks third-party verification, which may prompt clients to pressure Dentsu to disclose more real-time data rather than a summary version.

　　摩根大通(JPMorgan)的分析師田中由美(Yumi Tanaka)稱，該問題促使企業(yè)加強(qiáng)審查代理商對(duì)數(shù)字廣告的管理。電通承諾，公司內(nèi)部一個(gè)比較獨(dú)立的部門將監(jiān)測(cè)受到質(zhì)疑的數(shù)字廣告的效果數(shù)據(jù)。但這仍然缺乏第三方核實(shí)，可能會(huì)促使客戶施壓電通公開更多實(shí)時(shí)數(shù)據(jù)而不是簡(jiǎn)單的總結(jié)性數(shù)據(jù)。

　　It remains unclear whether the discrepancies in online ads were restricted to Dentsu or whether they plague the broader Japanese market. Shinsuke Iwasa, Mizuho analyst, warns that rivals should not treat it as a “Dentsu only” problem, citing the complexity of the performance-based ads. Dentsu has blamed lack of personnel and pressure to meet client demand for this new online advertising. Performance ads posted 22 per cent year-on-year growth in 2015 versus a 0.3 increase for Japan’s total ad spending.

　　尚不清楚在線廣告的問題僅限于電通還是影響了整個(gè)日本市場(chǎng)。瑞穗(Mizuho)分析師巖佐新助(Shinsuke Iwasa)警告稱，競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手不應(yīng)該把它當(dāng)做“唯獨(dú)電通”存在的問題，并指出了效果廣告的復(fù)雜性。電通將問題歸咎于缺乏人力，同時(shí)受到滿足客戶對(duì)這種新型在線廣告需求的壓力。2015年，效果廣告支出同比增長(zhǎng)了22%，而日本整體廣告支出僅增長(zhǎng)了0.3%。

　　For now, the amount of overcharging is unlikely to have any significant impact on Dentsu’s earnings. Its chief financial officer has stressed that none of its clients have cut ties with the company, saying such outright rejections “don’t normally happen in Japan”.

　　目前，收費(fèi)過高的問題不太可能會(huì)對(duì)電通的盈利產(chǎn)生顯著影響。電通首席財(cái)務(wù)官強(qiáng)調(diào)沒有任何一家客戶切斷了與電通的聯(lián)系，稱諸如此類的絕交“在日本并不常見”。

　　Regardless of financial fallout, analysts and companies hope that Dentsu will pursue international standards of transparency with the rigour it has shown in its ambitions to expand globally. In addition to the £3.2bn acquisition of the UK’s Aegis in 2013, the agency has bought six companies in US, France, India, Australia and Brazil for undisclosed prices in September alone.

　　不管在財(cái)務(wù)上會(huì)帶來多大影響，分析師和其他公司希望電通可以嚴(yán)格追求國(guó)際上對(duì)透明度的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，正如它在全球擴(kuò)張的野心中展現(xiàn)的嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)態(tài)度一樣。除了2013年以32億英鎊收購英國(guó)安吉斯(Aegis)外，電通還在今年9月以未公開價(jià)格收購了分別位于美國(guó)、法國(guó)、印度、澳大利亞和巴西的6家公司。

　　The reputational damage from the revelations should not be underestimated. As a Dentsu client said: “It’s not the sums involved, but a question of credibility.”

　　此次事件對(duì)電通的聲譽(yù)造成的損害不應(yīng)該被低估。正如電通一家客戶所言：“這與涉及金額無關(guān)，而是信譽(yù)問題。”