Dentsu investigating overcharging

Dentsu, Japan’s most powerful advertising agency, headquartered in Shodome district of Minato, Tokyo, is investigating over 200, 000 transactions to gather evidence of overcharging clients. Its public apology from the group’s head of digital advertising, threatens to tarnish their reputation once widely viewed as beyond reproach.

Dentsu’s internal investigation was triggered by a complaint from Toyota in July 2016, with over 1810 clients who use the digital advertising services to promote on websites and mobile apps.

Shoichi Nakamoto, Dentsu’s senior vice-president, said “ We deeply regret and will work to recover confidence. The period covering back to 2012, has found cases of deliberate human-caused errors, where fees were charged when online ads had been placed for a shorter time or not at all”.

So far Dentsu has identified 633 suspected cases of overcharging from 111clients, amounting to £1.75m (¥230m).

But loyal clients are still with Dentsu despite the overcharging allegations. Dentsu Inc. founded by Hoshiro Mitsunaga in 1901, is the world’s fifth-biggest advertising company, after WPP, Omnicom Group, Publicis Groupe and the Interpublic Group of Cos. It clients include Sony, Shiseido and Suntory, and a powerful player in entertainment and sport and is the marketing partner of the organisers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and holds broadcast rights for the 2018-24 Olympics in 22 Asian markets.