SAARF and AMPS 1974-2016

© Fernando Gregory – 123RF.com

24 October 1973: It is nearly 50 years ago since we sat in the boardroom in the Sandton offices of Lindsay Smithers, me at the very bottom of the table as befitted my status as the most junior of the many people present. It was by way of being a celebration and the focus of attention was firmly on Francis Meyer, Graham Higgo and Wally Langschmidt. At last, and after many years and months of discussions, lobbying and diplomacy, their dream of getting the industry to see the value of setting up a single source data base to be used by the whole marketing and advertising industry for the buying and selling of media space and time, had been achieved - marketers, advertisers and media owners cooperating for the first time for the good of all.

All that remained was to decide what to call this new product; and to choose the industry representatives who would be the guardians of its integrity, its scope and its credibility. It was Wally Langschmidt who said, in his inimitable way, "We don't need fancy names - call it what it is!" And so the All Media and Product Survey was christened, and nicknamed AMPS.

4 December 1974: The funds generated from a 0.5% levy on advertising necessitated the formation of an administrative body to administer the funds as well as to manage the project; this gave birth to the idea of establishing a joint industry committee named The South African Advertising Research Foundation or SAARF, and the official launch took place at the Ritz Cinema on 4 December 1974. By the end of 1975, the first AMPS had been completed by MRA as a joint venture with the then-existing National Readership Survey.

However, during that year, while AMPS was being planned and managed by Wally Langschmidt and MRA, it became increasingly clear that a permanent secretariat was required to administer the day to day responsibilities of this initiative. These included the receipt and disbursement of the funds, which were being collected by way of the advertising levy, as well as ensuring that the interests of the various constituent bodies were being fairly represented.

Accordingly, Casper Venter was appointed General Manager of SAARF, and Len van Zyl, Chairman of LS-FCB, offered to provide an office so that SAARF not only had a name, but also an address and a telephone number. All Media at that time meant Magazines, Newspapers, Radio, Outdoor [as it was called]; TV was yet to be introduced to South Africans, and Dr Albert Hertzog, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at the time, said that TV would come to South Africa "over my dead body".

5 January 1976: Although the SABC had finally been given permission to introduce a television service in 1971, it was only in May 1975 that experimental broadcasts in the main cities began. The nationwide service commenced on 5 January 1976, and finally AMPS really did live up to its promise of measuring All Media.

Advertisements were not flighted until 1978, only 8% of total broadcast time being permitted for commercial use. The first ever ad on television in South Africa was for Big T Burger from Table Top. There had been an auction for that privilege, which Table Top had won!

The guiding principles governing the administration of the levy and accepted by all stakeholders were:
• Only paid-for media are to be measured
• The data are to be used by all players as the common currency for measuring, buying and selling media
• All parties' interests must be served
• The levy must be unencumbered, that is, it must be raised before commission or discounts.

The core principle underpinning the survey, and the principle that would be at the centre of its being, was the principle of "equal sacrifice". Each stakeholder would have 'free' access to the survey, and the cost of the survey would be defrayed by those same stakeholders who would each 'give up' a pre-determined amount of the profit they would have accrued from the placement of advertising in the media.

Originally it was agreed that the 0.5% levy on advertising would be collected by the Advertising Agencies, but this proved to be impractical and instead, in 1975, media owners were asked to collect the levy and remit it to SAARF. The levy would be "added in" to rates and would thus be 'invisible' to advertisers. This method of collection worked very well and SAARF prospered and built up a surplus of funds earmarked for the further development of media research methodologies.

So it started with the advertiser, whose budget was reduced by the amount of the levy. They sacrificed exposure to fund AMPS. The media owner by default earned less because the budget was reduced by the amount of the levy, and the agencies sacrificed the commission they would have earned on the amount collected. But the common good was served as experimental media research was done and the sample size of AMPS increased to make the survey more robust and inclusive.

Commercial television changed everything. The new advertising opportunities afforded by commercial television had a major impact on ad spend overall, and significantly changed the share of spend between media. The collection of the levy underpinning SAARF was also affected and the levy fund was beginning to be seen as money pot, one that could be dipped into whenever an industry need arose. The financial management of the fund was becoming more and more complex as the amounts collected increased year on year.

In the mid-80's, the Advertising Standards Authority [the ASA] had run into serious financial difficulties and funds were urgently needed to support this body. Accordingly, a Marketing and Advertising Research and Standards Trust [MARST] was formed to receive the levy funds and distribute them to the ASA and SAARF. Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that the directors of SAARF and MARST had totally different objectives, and in November 1992 MARST was closed and the contribution to the ASA capped at R600,000.

Funds were then required for the Freedom of Commercial Speech Trust and other educational initiatives as well. So, once again, a Trust was formed in 1998 [the Marketing Industry Trust or MIT] and it wasn't long before SAARF was starting to feel the financial pressure as well. The levy monies originally collected to do media audience research were now supporting the ASA and The Freedom of Commercial Speech Trust, as well as SAARF, and pressure was starting to build up around the financial viability of SAARF into the future.

By the end of it first decade of existence, SAARF had been financially sound, well managed and well-positioned to move ahead and keep up with the growing requirements of the industry.

But, for the first time, the question of "whose money is it?" began to be heard. The media owners themselves began to see the levy monies collected by them as their money, a levy which impacted their bottom lines, and a weak Association of Marketers [ASOM] meant that there was no strong voice raised to argue this point.

There was also a call for the funds collected to be spent on research only into the medium responsible for the collection of those funds. Common good was no longer discussed. Pro rata was the new mantra, and each media owner would do its own research into its medium, serving the industry only through a so-called Establishment Survey which would replace AMPS.

Wally Langschmidt warned the industry that they were in danger of losing a tool which was the envy of the world, which worked, and which was an example of what could be achieved for the common good when advertisers, media owners and agencies worked together. He said "Gentlemen - the day you start getting greedy you're going to destroy this whole thing".

Sadly, that day has come.

It is now the intention that individual media owners will take control of the audience research relating to their medium and notice has been served that the AMPS currently in progress will be the last, with the final reports being published in March 2016. What is not clear is how the data, collected by individual media owners after the closure of SAARF and AMPS, will be made available to the industry at large? Also not clear is how the balance of the funds collected through the levy system will be shared when the SAARF doors close?

Recently, however, the voice of the marketers has begun to be heard again. A new Chairman [Justin Apsey, Unilever] has been appointed to lead the SA Marketing Association, and appears to be taking a strong stand with regard to the issue of audience research and the establishment survey. Could there be light at the end of the tunnel? I mourn that things have come to such a pass. And I know that I am not alone in this. I am also sure that it is not too late for the marketers to "step up and stand strong in the environment" [Justin Apsey], although this will not be easy.

Hopefully the story will end with another celebration and not a wake. And hopefully the people sitting around that table will be as brave and as visionary as the original threesome nearly 50 years ago.

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