WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS FOR BEING WITHIN AAAN?

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments.

Thanks my dear anonymous friend for your very useful contribution. What I have done is respond within the body of your message in green.

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.

The idea of pitch fees is to safeguard our members from prospects who just love to invite agencies and tap our brains and refuse to compensate us. It isnt new, and it happens in some professions like law and architecture as well. And there are existing regulations on it. Compliance has been very difficult because members generally still respond to invitations to pitch without asking to be compensated. We cannot eat our cake and also have it. It is time to speak some home truths to ourselves. Do we believe in this pitch fee regime? If we do, then lets all be committed to it. Sanction is a little difficult now because no one reports when the rule is broken. However, we are soon running a campaign to all clients and prospects on what steps to take when inviting agencies to pitch; many of them dont know. We want to tell them for example that credentials pitch neednt attract a fee; creative and strategy pitches will. If the "small" agency prefers not to be paid a pitch fee as you suggest, then it is not in line with the global goal of the AAAN. The door is still open for discussions on the issue: should we completely scrap the issue of pitch fees and let agencies decide which pitches they want to participte in? We will rest the issue this year.

Secondly, what are the sanctions that will accrue if an AAAN member agrees to present a pitch, without remuneration?

The sanctions already exist, and the first step is that such erring agency will face the AAAN Disciplinary Committee. I served on this committee and chaired it in the past. The agency is given every opportunity to present a case and defend itself. What the sanction will be will be at the discretion of the committee working within the laid down regulation. In the past I think an agency was fined and another suspended from the association.

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.

Good thinking. The campaign to back this is in progress and should start running as soon as the presentations from agencies are vetted and approved. I agree with you.

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.

There was indeed a time when we had this membership privileges with an airline and some hotels. I suspect over time, we all stopped asking about them. We will rescucitate it and even extend it to other relevant vendors for group benefits.

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.

The "assurances pledge" is already in our constitution and our bye laws. We are expected to respect each other's interests etc. But what do we have? Everyone breaks the rules. Ideally, we should ask questions from the incumbent when a client offers us its business, but how many of us do it? We are too excited about the business. And unlike what many agencies think, the so called big agencies also suffer it. Take us for example, one of our bank clients had agreed that we run their capitalisation campaign; somehow, things changed in a mysterious way and they gave it to a smaller agency, which was too glad to take it, and didnt even as much as say a word to us. The only time you hear this is when its the other way round. We can keep on mouthing these things; if we dont show serious commitment, it will continue to be a case of dogs eating dogs.

Sincerely,"Anonymous"

I thank you again for your contributions and wish you well.

Regards,

'Lolu