Marketers united!?

How can we as an industry allow the death of AMPS? I, and no doubt many others, have used this amazing study extensively to develop strategies, define target markets etc. for many years. How we are going to survive without AMPS, I do not know. What I do know is that we are going back to the dark ages where we stumble around in the dark.

Interestingly, the countries that have industry research much like our AMPS, are well structured. They have forums of marketers, media, research etc. that ensure that the results are in the interest of all parties in the industry. Not so any more in our beautiful SA.

Who pays the bill?

To me, the answer is simple. AMPS is funded by the media, the marketers are the ones who pay the media. Their only income, bar subscriptions, is from advertising. Marketers hold the purse strings, without them the media houses will not exist. Yet, they have allowed the media to walk away from SAARF! Thereby, possibly leaving themselves in the dark. I raised the question in the briefing, only to be told it is too late for the marketers to stop the process. WHY?

If marketers demand that the media continue to fund SAARF, surely they would have to comply. Each media type is now going to do their own research, which is going to cost more, which the marketers are going to ultimately have to pay for. Their research will focus on themselves and not necessarily reflect the market as a whole, and most importantly, not be comparable to other research. No doubt the marketers will have to do a lot more research to fill the gap left by the demise of AMPS.

A waste of time and money!

All of this is going to cost a hell of a lot more and be nowhere as good and unbiased as AMPS. It is beyond me to understand how the likes of Unilever, Tiger Brands, Pioneer Foods, Brandhouse, Old Mutual, SAB etc. can allow this.

The only people who will gain from this are the research companies. PLEASE can the industry [marketers] get together and stop this. It will not be load shedding, rather a complete grid collapse if nothing is done.

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