William Brewer Commentary on Campaign Article
Written by William A. Brewer III
In the advertising industry, yesterday's scandals tend to reappear as tomorrow's panel discussions.
In 2016, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA)’s K2 Intelligence report exposed a web of hidden incentives, rebates, principal media arrangement, and undisclosed markups that many advertisers suspected existed, but few could prove. In response, agencies pledged reform and trade groups promised accountability. A new era had supposedly arrived. But what followed was a decade of webinars, panels, promises, and a great deal of kabuki theater.
Yet here we are.
This week, the Association of National Advertisers once again convened industry leaders to discuss rebates, principal media, and whether advertisers fully understand where their dollars go. Despite declarations of “change” and greater transparency, the profiteering barely changed at all.
Richard Plansky, who led the K2 Intelligence investigation, identified the disconnect. Advertisers believed they had advocates. Agencies believed they had clients. One side thought it was a marriage; the other wasn't even sure they were dating.
Which brings us to Richard Foster. The plaintiff in Foster v. WPP et al.
According to Foster, for years he expressed concerns behind closed doors. He periodically pointed out to colleagues, attorneys, and superiors that GroupM was not doing what it said it was doing. Then, in November 2025, he gave a full report to GroupM’s new CEO. He became, in a word – a whistleblower. His report “named names,” contained specific examples of undisclosed rebates and enormous detail. And – according to Foster – it got him fired.
Among those paying close attention is industry veteran and consultant on the Foster case, Nick Manning, who this week questioned whether the industry's transparency revolution was an evolution at all, or merely a succession of new labels attached to old incentives.
More importantly, Manning identified Foster's case as perhaps the most significant window into agency practices since the K2 report itself.
If transparency is truly the new model, why is one of the most consequential transparency casesin a multibillion-dollar industry being litigated in the dark?
Richard Foster blew the whistle on a system he believed was broken. Today, he is litigating for his life.
The Campaign article below is worth reading in full. Ten years after the industry's transparency reckoning began, the questions raised by Foster's case appear less like relics of the past than unfinished business.