Ad Agency Group Recommends Members Bar Discrimination in Contracts
Advertising buyers should bar discrimination against media companies they purchase ads from, the group representing such agencies recommended. The recommendation that members of the American Association of Advertising Agencies adopt a non-discrimination policy in picking vendors, and let those that feel they've been discriminated against complain about alleged violations, comes after the 4As worked for years on such an initiative, industry officials said. In 2007 the FCC banned discrimination in broadcast advertising (CD March 7/08 p9). The commission’s reach doesn’t go beyond radio and TV stations, and so the ban on so-called non-urban or non-Hispanic terms in contracts can’t be enforced for the companies that buy commercials and the agencies they use to make those purchases.
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The public-private partnership won praise from FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Robert McDowell, as well as minority broadcasters. McDowell pointed to estimates from the Minority Media and Telecom Council that language prohibiting broadcast ads from reaching urban audiences or those predominately made up of Hispanics cost minority broadcasters about $200 million annually. The 4As Media Policy Committee asked members to include language in internal materials banning discrimination.
"Consistent with each Agency client’s marketing communications strategies, effective media target audience planning, and efficient media buying practices, Agency policy is to grant equal opportunity to all such Vendors,” the committee recommended 4A members write in policy manuals, employee training materials and other documents. “Agency will provide each of its Vendors with the opportunity to present in writing the basis of its dissatisfaction to Agency’s Discrimination Complaint Review Committee. Based on its findings, the committee may request a meeting with the Vendor to discuss all pertinent information related to the complaint,” the committee said.
Ads work “best when everyone has the opportunity to participate -- whether that’s the people working in our industry or those doing business with the industry,” 4As CEO Nancy Hill wrote members on Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bmg5m8). “Best practice recommendations serve to strengthen our industry as a whole.” Kizart Media Partners Managing Director Sherman Kizart, who helped broker the language, called it “a historic moment.” He and 4As executives had no comment beyond a news release.
MMTC expects the 4A policy to “extend to all media,” the council said, “including broadcast, print, cable and online advertising.” The NAB and NCTA had no comment. It seems as if the industry recommendations would apply beyond broadcasting, said Adonis Hoffman, lead lawyer for the ad group that helped the commission with the ban on broadcast ad discrimination. “Resolving this problem will hinge on two very simple principles,” he said: Ad agency CEOs need to ensure “junior staffers abide by the spirit of the rules, not just the letter,” and the executives must choose to “buy minority media,” ads, “not just tolerate them,” said Hoffman. He worked at the 4As until last year, and now advises advertisers, ad agencies and media companies.
The no-urban and no-Spanish dictates were an “irrational distortion of the marketplace” and “unlawful,” MMTC Executive Director David Honig told us. “With this 4A’s announcement, it’s now industrywide policy to combat it.” Industry and FCC officials said the 4As had told some at the commission of the policy in recent days. An agency spokesman declined to comment.
"It’s important that the advertising industry get behind the FCC’s efforts to end no-urban dictates and no-Spanish dictates throughout the advertising industry,” said Executive Director Jim Winston of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. “The 4As making a strong statement to that effect will help considerably."
"This is an excellent example of a public-private partnership,” Copps said. He noted that in March, the commission for the first time required broadcasters to certify to the FCC when they seek to renew their licenses that their ad contracts weren’t discriminatory (CD March 13 p16). McDowell said the agency lacks the “authority to regulate advertisers or media buyers.” He’s “particularly pleased that this is yet another example of the private sector resolving an industry-wide concern without a government mandate to do so.” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn called the 4As policy recommendation “another helpful step toward realizing the goal of providing equal opportunity to media vendors and suppliers across media platforms.”