An anonymous practitioner contributed this piece below, in reponse to a previous one from Afolabi Sorunke, another practitioner. I will attempt to respond to the issue within Anonymous' comments.
Anonymous said...
Lolu,I have read your manifesto, and your response to Folabi. I am still in the dark about what tangible benefits will accrue to a practitioner solely as a member of AAAN.It is a fact that some non-AAAN members are unethical and crooked, but that cannot be said of every body. So, for the practitioner who is committed to tilling and toiling the old-fashioned way till the big break comes, please enlighten me more, in real tangible terms, why being a member of AAAN will be beneficial to me.Or is it an idea whose time has passed? Or is it an idea whose purpose needs to be revamped and redefined?Once again, I remain anonymous, for now.
Friday, 01 June, 2007.
Let me start by saying many of our membership benefits have been eroded over the years; we must be honest to admit this. Consider some of them: discriminatory media/production margins, industry clout, government liaison etc. We all know how we got to this sorry pass, and I wont go into the sad details. I hve mentioned some of the things I pln to do to restore many of them.
Having said this, I must draw your attention to one major benefit we havent lost. Many serious local and multinational clients still prefer to deal with AAAN members. The recent pitch announcement by UBA specifically wanted AAAN agencies. We therefore must harp on this, and your exco is already working on a series of campaigns to let the public know that it is mre professional to deal with an AAAN agency.
While it is a sad situation, it is not entirely helpless. Moving ahead, and if I receive your mandate, I intend to do the following which I believe will offer more membership benefits to our members:
Discriminatory media commissions will be reinstated.
We will enter into discussions with BON, NPAN etc to review the situation. I must warn that it will come with a commitment from us: we must be responsible in the area of payment, because inevitably, the media owners will tie it to payments. I mentioned this in my response to Folabi. See, the issue is that the media environment has become liberalised. Years back, very few players were outside of AAAN, and they were so small and weak. It was therefore easier for us to manage them, vis a vis the media owners. Now we have many non AAAN agencies, and other contractors and hot shops and they represent a formidable clout, especially when they have the financial muscle. We will give our commitment to the media owners to make our members do better, and in return will demand for the reinstatement of the discriminatory discounts.
Pitch Fees Will Be Mandatory
I intend to follow up on current efforts on this. We have initiated a process which will educate all current and prospective clients on how to go about selecting agencies and the need to pay pitch fees to our members. We also intend to obtain the support of ADVAN in this respect. We are aware that our members spend a lot on pitches and are sometimes not remunerated, or just partially so. Things will change. Again we will need every one's support. If we insist on members not pitching when a prospect insists on not paying a pitch fee, and our members regularly flout this, it cannot help our cause. Until such a time when we begin to speak and act in one accord, it will be hard for us.
Client Indebtedness
Many of our members are suffering from clients who owe us indefinitely. I am committed to using the clout of the association and legal means where provable and necessary to ensure this is reduced to the minimum. We will ensure that our members report such situations to the secretariat, and we will take them up, and see them to a logical conclusion.
These are some of the benefits we are looking towards introducing. I will urge you because I see you are interested in the welfare of the profession, to also foward to me ideas which we can all look at towards increasing the value of AAAN membership. What will you like to see for example? This is the whole issue of this dialogue, since no one practitioner can have all the answers; lets benefit from the insight of your experience.
Once again I appreciate your contributions. Its a long, long road ahead and it will take the sustained invlovement of people like you and Folabi an others to make it rewardable for us all. I look forward to hearing from you.
3 comments:
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments. I am a little sceptical, though about the eficacy of some of your proposals. Here is my problem: how do we mandate pitch fees?
If AAAN "mandates" pitch fees, and a small agency is just happy to be invited to the table to pitch, the temptation will be great to pitch, just for the chance and the opportunity.
If there are enough of these agencies out there (and there are), this might place AAAN members at a disadvantage.
Secondly, what are the sanctions that will accrue if an AAAN member agrees to present a pitch, without remuneration?
Since you asked for suggestions, here are my feelings. It is my belief that we may not be in a position to mandate or demand anything from clients unless we are also willing to make them a guarantee.
There must be a certain level of promise, quality, and assurances that we must make to them to assure thaem that it is in their bets interest to deal only with AAAN member agencies. An AAAN "certified" agency should count for something tangible to them. The details of such assurances, guarantees, or standards, can be worked out later.
In addition, membership must also have its privileges. I have a few ideas that may seem small and immaterial, but they are ideas that may lead to other big ideas.
First of all, the AAAN may consider entering into partnerships with airlines, hotels, whereby membership in the AAAN will automatically guarantee its employees a certain % discounts on airfares, accommodation,gym membership, tee time privileges and the like.
Secondly, you might want to consider another "assurances" pledge between members. This might help to draw in the "little fish" that are scared that the "big fish" will eat them up or stamp them out of existence.
This is all I am able to come up with for now.
Hope it helps.
Sincerely,
"Anonymous"
Sincerely indeed!
Hi all. Quite clearly, whoever this "anonymous" person is, s/he represents the dark side of the human spirit. This election is about elevating the practice by putting in place whatever legitimately will empower the association. This web site was created to foster such ideals. Whoever this miscreant is (and I do hope s/he isnt a member of our noble association), s/he has had no other contribution than to spread his/her verminous mischief, reducing a noble exercise into silly, uninformed partisanship, and shamelessly, and mischievously hiding under her/his odious anonymity. Many readers of this website have unanimously advised that henceforth I stop publishing his/her comments, and any other comment for that matter that isnt properly identified.
'Lolu
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