Paying it forward

As I poured my Windhoek Lager and ordered his second Klippies and water, no ice, I wondered what had got Fred going this time.

"Think about it," he said, "the MFSA which represents the marketers puts on the Loeries, a celebration of creativity - and the ACA, representing the ad agencies, sponsors the Advertising Effectiveness Awards. Surely it should be the other way around? Surely marketers want 'ads that work' and the agencies are more concerned with 'creativity'."

I could not fault his logic and sought reason for this current "AAF". In the old days when agencies were still paid commissions, in effect the media were paying the agencies for work done by them for their advertiser clients. Of course this particular AAF is a fact of a distant, past history, when ad sales reps started writing copy in addition to selling space. Was this where it all started, we pondered?

And, we agreed that the AAF factor also raises its head in the funding of SAARF. Think about it; the Media add a levy onto their rate cards, collect the funds and then this cash (R30 million plus) is used to finance the industry funded media surveys, AMPS RAMS and TAMS. In effect the advertisers pay for research that is used by the media to sell their time and space back to the advertisers.

This particular 'AAF' has (at last) been recognized by the PMSA, representing the print media, who have opted out of the levy system and now fund their print research in AMPS, directly. We wondered when the advertisers would see the light and opt out of the levy system on TAMS and RAMS.

"Why," Fred asked, "should the advertisers pay for research that is vital to the media? Would the SABC pay for a U&A study commissioned by Unilever?" Not likely we concluded. And yet, the SABC, through their household panel, is doing just that by providing marketers with usage and attitudinal data on their brands, for free!

As I left, I made a mental note to contact Howard Gabriels, (formerly Chairperson of MFSA), currently Chair of SAARF, to get his comments on all the "AAFS" that seem to be bedeviling the advertising and communications industry in South Africa.