The Media Charter announced by the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), the apex national body of advertisers, has kicked up a storm in the ad world with digital agencies raising concerns around ISA’s right to audit media spends including the scrutiny of vendor contracts and other such clauses in what’s called the model media agency agreement.
While the ad agencies are studying the charter with trepidation, in an in-depth interview with Storyboard18, Sunil Kataria, ISA chairman and CEO of Lifestyle Business at Raymond Ltd., said that the charter offers a comprehensive guideline to promote fair and transparent practices in the advertising industry. He said the first part on the media agency agreement has been rolled out but others on ad fraud, brand safety, first party data and media measurement, will be released before the end of the calendar year.
Edited excerpts:
Q: Is ISA’s media charter, that has frazzled the ad industry, the first of its kind in India?
A: It is the first time we are doing such a detailed one. It is a comprehensive media charter. ISA is a founding member of World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). The WFA has worked on a media charter which has been rolled out in most advanced countries globally with tweaks in each country based on media systems. We have worked closely with WFA and audit and compliance firms.
Q: What was the trigger for such a charter?
A: The media ecosystem is evolving at a very rapid pace in every country, with digital having become very large. Traditionally, in India, the conventional media has been very strong. In the last decade, digital media has evolved and close to 50 percent of the spends today in India are already happening on digital. It is a completely changed landscape from what existed even five years ago and advertisers’ big money is going into it.
This media charter is an overall charter to guide our advertising. The ISA is an advisory body. This is a prescriptive piece that we’re doing. Our job is to create transparency and knowledge for our advertisers on the best practices that can happen across the media ecosystem.
If you see, there are six parts to this charter. What we have rolled out on Wednesday is the first part which is the model media agency agreement.
Agencies are handling many more diverse fields than just pure play TV. We have put together very comprehensive advisory guidelines on what can a model media agency agreement look like. It is obviously a prescriptive agreement because every advertiser’s relationship with the media agency is unique. The intent is to guide them and then they are perfectly free to pick, choose, modify and build their own relationship with their agency. But this at least sets a kind of a template for them to understand the global best practices and what we are recommending for India specifically.
Q: At first glance, it seems like a crackdown on digital agencies which seem worried.
A: That is how the press has put it. The fact is we have worked very closely on this with WFA whose members have got contracts with the leading global ad networks in the world. There is a sub-committee which worked on this with media heads of various large companies.
We had enough insights when we worked on this. It’s not been done in isolation.
At ISA our job is to create knowledge and transparency for our advertisers across evolving media spaces and make sure that they get the best effectiveness for their spends.
Q: Are media discounts that are not passed on to advertisers a big problem area? And even programmatic buying?
A: It’s not that there is any specific problem area. Many of these areas are normally, reasonably well-known to large advertisers and networks which are very big in India. But we also have a network of medium and small advertisers who don’t necessarily have access to this kind of knowledge. They do not have a large media departments or media professionals who understand and are upskilled in this area.
We are not highlighting any specific issue. We are looking at the whole gamut. We are imparting knowledge and sharing the best practices.
Q: The right to audit mentioned in the charter, especially, scrutiny of vendor contracts may have raised an alarm, too.
A: It’s very fair practice. First of all, let’s for a moment put aside the media relationship. I mean, when you have any relationships between partners, there is a right to audit which exists because you need to know that if you’re sanctioning monies or resources to be spent in a certain way by any partner or third-party vendor, it has gone the right way. That’s a fair right of a person who is doing the spending.
Q: What about the other modules in the charter? When will those be released?
A: So, in the balance five pieces that we will do and in which some work has already started, there is very clearly one module on brand safety when it is placed in digital media. Say, if I’ve told you that my brand should be placed on so-and-so platform in so-and-so environment and if the brand advertising has come in the context of a topic and content which is toxic or and I don’t agree with, there’s a problem. For instance, is your brand safe if you put a kid’s digital banner ad next to a site with adult content? It is an extreme example but then is your brand safe? Therefore the need for brand safety guidelines. It is a very important topic that has emerged globally. In India, it is still evolving. A lot of people still have to understand it.
We have formed sub-committees which are working on each of the next phases of our full media charter. These sub-committee have been formed from within our advertising partners and their media heads. And we are also taking members from among publishers and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) so that we can form a very collaborative and jointly implementable guideline.
Work is also happening on viewability – the definition of viewability in digital media and first party data usage and transparency practices. That’s an evolving digital piece. Then there is ad fraud that can happen when you advertise on digital media where you are paying for impressions but they may be a bots.
And the last one on media measurement is very big and may take more time as it has larger pilots to be done. But we would like to finish the other four by end of this calendar year.
Q: ISA charter has also put agency remuneration on its list. Ad agencies say they are already squeezed for funds and work on extremely low fees and commissions making it difficult to hire talent.
A: It is very difficult for us to comment on what percentage is right for any agency. Every agency has its own infrastructure, talent pool, number of clients and the services it offers. Obviously, the intent is not to squeeze anybody to make it unviable. The intent is to establish a transparent fair practice. We are not giving any percentages. We are saying multiple models exist and what are the things they could build into their models.
Q: Has ISA suddenly woken up and turned active after all these years?
A: No, it is a very active body. We have a media forum which works on multiple media related issues. We impart a lot of knowledge to our members regularly, through the ISA Knowledge Series. ISA is on the board of the television measurement agency BARC where we play a pretty balancing, principled role in terms of ensuring that advertisers actually pay for what India watches.
We have been very active but some of the headlines are because we have launched a very big module which is attracting limelight.