AAAI modifies business pitch guidelines for member agencies

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) revised its guidelines for any business pitch by its members. This move is in modification of AAAI’s earlier circular to members dated November 2, 2018, effective November 15, 2018 and is based on experience of media agencies and in response to advertisers’ request, while at the same time keeping in mind the requirement of industry bodies like INS and IBF.

The AAAI Executive Committee, at its meeting held on June 30, 2020, unanimously agreed that with immediate effect every AAAI member for any business pitch shall adhere to the following:

1. Not quote a rate or CPRP for any individual channel or publication or any media group.
2. For Television, for Hindi speaking markets (HSM) Agencies can submit genre wise CPRP for genres like General Entertainment Channels (GEC), Movies, etc. and CPRP at market level for other genres.
3. Agencies can submit for HSM genre wise rates for genres where business is conducted by Agencies with channels on Effective Rate (ER) like niche and long tail channels.
4. It is clarified that Agencies can submit either Effective Rate or CPRP but not both for a Genre.
5. Agencies submitting genre/ cluster level must ensure there are minimum of at least 3 channels in each genre/ cluster, if not, two genres/ clusters must be combined.
6. For Print, Agencies can submit consolidated rates for a Print Plan at a state level and give the total cost.
7. If a Print Plan has less than 3 publications per state, then costing must be given for a group of States to ensure that there are at least 3 publications in each group of States.
8. Agencies can submit rates for a maximum of 2 rounds of submission – one original and one revision.

Agencies have been asked to adhere to these guidelines in spirit and letter. Members are cautioned that failure to adhere to these guidelines may lead Industry Associations to dis-accredit the agency concerned, in which case the agency would lose its credit facilities, thereby hampering its ability to conduct business.