Federal Review: Billions in Contracts to Pro-Censorship Advertiser Alliance Members Deemed “Dangerous” and “Sham”

Some members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a World Economic Forum (WEF)-affiliated advertising group accused of helping carry out censorship online, are receiving money from those same US taxpayers whose speech they work to silence.

Other than scores of the world’s biggest brands and corporations, GARM counts six global advertising agencies among its members.

Despite the allegations (actively investigated by Congress) that the initiative’s promise of securing “brand safety” is used as a smokescreen to blacklist “disfavored” brands, creators, and content and deprive them of advertising revenue, four of those agencies are receiving billions of US taxpayer dollars, the Foundation for Freedom Online states.

This information stems from a review of federal contracts, the free speech watchdog said, naming the four agencies as Interpublic Group (IPG), Omnicom, WPP, and Publicis Groupe.

The last of these, Publicis Groupe (which has ties with the controversial outfit NewsGuard) has a subsidiary called Plowshare Group LLC that has a contract, valid until 2025, worth $394.2 million with the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department of the US government.

Two other subsidiaries – Sapient Government Solutions and OnPoint consulting – whose business is to secure government contracts, “also received hundreds of millions of dollars over the years from a variety of government agencies,” reports the Foundation for Freedom Online.

DDB Chicago Inc., an Omnicom subsidiary, has a 10-year, $4 billion contract to manage the US Army’s marketing account. Omnicom’s Ketchum, meanwhile, earns $247 million for its work for the HHS, while GSD&M Idea City LLC, another Omnicom subsidiary, receives $741 million to produce US Air Force recruitment ads.

IPG’s DXTRA Inc. is also in the business with the HHS, and this deal is worth in excess of $1.1 billion. Still with the same global ad agency, MullenLowe Global gets $454 million “to maintain the Department of Defense’s Joint Advertising, Market Research & Studies program (JAMRS), which recruits for all branches of the military,” the watchdog says.

Finally, WPP’s two subsidiaries also have very strong ties with the military: VMLY&R with the US Navy (a $455 million, five-year contract), while Wunderman Thompson makes ads for US Marines and has done so for decades.

Last but not least – “WPP also owns the world’s leading media buying agency GroupM,” the report states, noting that its CEO, Christian Juhl, “recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee to defend GARM’s actions.”

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