With its transparency report, Crossmedia pioneered the field of planning neutrality 15 years ago. No other agency has an equally strict, pro-active and verifiable standard. However, what does transparency mean in today’s age of trading (and media agencies’ general acceptance as traders)? Matthias Bade, managing director at Crossmedia Germany, on the future of the agency’s transparency promise and why being a trader and an independent consultant are still mutually exclusive concepts.

On the 22nd of August Bild-TV first aired a regular TV station in Germany. Being a brand spin-off of one of Germany’s biggest newspapers “Bild”, it is actually quite astonishing that a medium called “Bild” (image) and not “word” needed 69 years to find its way from paper to screen. Crossmedia Managing Director, Matthias Bade, takes stock of how the station has developed during its first three months and how it is to be assessed from the advertising industry’s vantage point.