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ACA tells parliament its BEE Scorecard is ready

By Louise Marsland

18 Oct 2004

Today is D-day for the marketing and advertising industry as parliamentary hearings commence for the report-back on transformation. The Association for Communication & Advertising (ACA) was first up and revealed that its BEE Scorecard for the advertising industry is ready.

Nunu Ntshingila

In her presentation, ACA chairperson, Nunu Ntshingila, outlined major transformation trends in the advertising industry, as the results from industry benchmarking studies are still being collated, and the advertising industry scorecard - expected to be unveiled in September - is still under wraps pending Government okay.

As regards transformation in the advertising industry, average equity ownership increased to an effective 26% (2003 figures - 2004 are only released in November), and black representation in top management is expected to exceed the 20% level which was achieved in 2003, due to a number of equity deals in the past year.

The ACA Board approved a transformation scorecard for the industry on 13 October, after choosing to develop its own scorecard as determined by prevailing industry realities and based on a review of the ACA's own Transformation Charter and targets. The ACA will now engage with Government and other industry stakeholders and urges that the ACA scorecard becomes a consistent and integral part of the Government Tender Process and is taken into consideration for the development of the industrywide scorecard for the advertising and marketing industry.

"The ACA has voluntarily been monitoring members' progress in key empowerment variables - some for over six years - through our two annual surveys to which we have a 100% response, namely the ACA Empowerment Equity Survey and the ACA Employee Cost to Agency Survey. As the results of these surveys only become available in early November each year, we are unfortunately not in a position to provide you with our 2004 figures in all respects," said Ntshingila.

She, however, highlighted key trends in the industry which point to progress in transformation since previous reports to Parliament in 2001 and 2002.

Ntshingila explained further:

EQUITY

"Average equity ownership has increased to an effective 26% in 2003, and is expected to increase even more significantly with the release of our 2004 survey results in early November.

In particular, new empowerment deals that took place since our prior reports to Parliament involve the following agencies: Lobedu Leo Burnett: 51% BEE equity ownership; Lowe Bull: 26%; DDB South Africa: 40%; Y&R Gitam: 30%; FCB SA: 26%; Herdbuoys Ekapa: 26%; Grey Global: 25,1%; Jupiter Drawing Room: 26%. These deals of course exclude empowerment deals that occurred in other member agencies prior to our last report-back, such as Ogilvy, TBWA Hunt Lascaris, etc.

Employment equity has increased at an average growth rate of 3% p.a. over the past five years to an effective 33% in 2003. This is not as much as we would have hoped for, but what is encouraging is that this growth has actually occurred despite the fact that the advertising agency industry has experienced an effective decline of 8% in employment numbers over the past five years.

Black representation in top management is expected to exceed the 20% level which has been achieved in 2003.

Overall female representivity is over 60% and black female representation in management and professional cadres was at 9.1% for 2003 and all indications are that this will improve in 2004."

TRAINING

"Over and above internal training programmes in member agencies, skills development through the AAA School of Advertising (which belongs to the ACA) has made major progress in that an effective 65% of full-time students in Integrated Marketing Communications (the most popular learnership programme), at the Johannesburg campus is black, and 63% of part-time students at this campus is black. The challenge remains to increase the proportion of enrollment of black students in the creative programme.

In addition the funding of 91 black students who can't afford to study at AAA School, has been secured through ACA members support of three learnership programmes currently registered through the MAPPP SETA. In 2004, an application has been made to add 59 new learners. However, it is with concern that we note that the future of MAPPP SETA is in the balance due to a restructuring initiative by the National Skills Fund."

Regarding participation in the Monitoring & Steering Committee, the ACA has taken note of the problems experienced in the industrywide BEE monitor survey. Ntshingila elaborated: "However, as far as the implementation of the Values Statement, to which the ACA is a fellow signatory, is concerned, the ACA can report progress."

SCORECARD

Ntshingila went on to highlight to parliament the following:

"As mentioned, the ACA has already been monitoring members progress in key empowerment variables since 1998 through our own surveys. For this reason, the ACA communicated to the Monitoring & Steering Committee that it could not make a financial contribution towards the BEE Monitor, but was willing to provide information from its own surveys (to which we have a 100% response), which can be incorporated into the BEE monitor survey. For further information on demographics such as ownership, black and gender representivity at the ACA and at the AAA School of Advertising we refer you to Annexure A (which is attached to the ACA's full report, which has been distributed to Parliament).

The ACA has chosen to develop its own scorecard as determined by prevailing industry realities and based on a review of the ACA's own Transformation Charter and targets which have been in existence since February 2000. The ACA is now in a position to report that this draft scorecard, a product of intensive internal consultation amongst its members and employees, is complete and was approved at the ACA Board meeting of 13 October. In the spirit of co-operation, the ACA will now embark upon the process of further engagement with Government and other stakeholders in our industry regarding its draft scorecard. It will also ask that the ACA scorecard becomes a consistent and integral part of the Government Tender Process and is taken into consideration for the development of the industrywide scorecard."

TENDERS

"As far as Government tenders are concerned, the ACA has brought to the attention of the Monitoring & Steering Committee specific problems which adversely affect, in particular, emerging black advertising agencies at a time where preferential procurement is a stated area of concern for Government and Parastatals. Through the joint and vigorous efforts of GCIS, the National Treasury, Government departments and the ACA, these problems are now being comprehensively addressed through the development of Best Practice Guidelines for the Procurement of Advertising Services by Government and Parastatals which will hopefully be concluded before year-end."

ADVERTISING

"The creative community formed a new organization called the Creative Circle with the object of encouraging and promoting creative excellence which is relevant and meaningful in the Southern African context. The Creative Circle has also become much more balanced in terms of race and gender and is playing an active role in advancing transformation in the creative community. For example, this year's Loerie awards included a jury that was more diverse than ever before (50% black) and reportedly the largest proportion of awards yet to be won by black creatives, exceeding the 21% of awards that was won in 2003 (awaiting confirmation from MFSA). Whilst the ACA notes this progress the challenge, once again, remains to increase the number of black creatives in top management."

Regarding media procurement, the Advertising Media Forum (AMF) will be making their own presentation to follow "our own", Ntshingila said.

The Marketing Federation of SA (MFSA), is expected to deliver a dismal report-back to parliament on the lack of progress in the industry, including poor participation in a benchmarking research study to ascertain transformation levels in the industry.

The MFSA has recently come under fire for its handling of its own transformation process of the organization, and the industry's premier awards, the Loerie Advertising Awards. It in turn, has been critical of the marketing industry's lack of transformation.

Louise Burgers

About Louise Marsland

Louise Burgers (previously Marsland) is Founder/Content Director: SOURCE Content Marketing Agency. Louise is a Writer, Publisher, Editor, Content Strategist, Content/Media Trainer. She has written about consumer trends, brands, branding, media, marketing and the advertising communications industry in SA and across Africa, for over 20 years, notably, as previous Africa Editor: Bizcommunity.com; Editor: Bizcommunity Media/Marketing SA; Editor-in-Chief: AdVantage magazine; Editor: Marketing Mix magazine; Editor: Progressive Retailing magazine; Editor: BusinessBrief magazine; Editor: FMCG Files newsletter. Web: www.sourceagency.co.za.