Newspaper houses are planning to spend close to a million in an attempt to scupper the government’s crackdown on tobacco advertising, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy
MAJOR newspaper houses are planning to spend close to R1-million to fight the government’s crackdown on lucrative tobacco advertising.
Documents in the Mail & Guardian’s possession show that nearly half of the proposed amount will be spent on outside consultants, who will be expected to lobby in government corridors.
The newspaper companies, joined by advertising agencies in the plan, say the proposals are driven by their constitutional right to freedom of commercial speech.
The government will find it increasingly difficult to push through its planned restrictions on the advertising of liquor, tobacco and milk substitutes if the industries approve the proposal to initiate the campaign.
The Print Media Association (PMA), an umbrella body consisting of various magazine and newspaper affiliates, recently set up the Media Industry Committee on the Freedom of Commercial Speech. This committee was established:
l in the short term, to delay tobacco legislation and create the basis for ongoing consultation; and
l in the long term, to create a platform for regular consultation (with the government) on matters affecting what the industry sees as its commercial interests.
For some time the PMA has had a committee to fight against restrictions on tobacco advertising. But, following the association’s congress last year, the new committee was convened and broadened its brief to be the “defence of freedom of commercial speech”, rather than be product specific. This newly formed committee got support from clients and media owners including the International Advertising Association and the Public Relations Institute of South Africa.
It also has observer status for some media industry stakeholders, including the Freedom of Expression Institute, the South African National Editors’ Forum and the National Association of Broadcasters.
“We work from a couple of premises including that if it is legal to produce something, then it should be legal to promote it,” said Neil Jacobsohn, chair of the committee and Times Media Limited’s deputy chief operating officer.
He added that the committee’s chief focus is to engage the government on a consultative basis and prevent groups with a common goal of freedom of commercial speech from duplicating efforts.
Jacobsohn recently sent a document to the various general managers and chief executives at Independent Newspapers, Perskor and Nasionale Media, among others, in a bid to lobby support for the planned year-long campaign to fight the government restrictions.
Jacobsohn said this week that consultants had been hired to devise a freedom of commercial speech strategy and present it to the media and advertising industries. The presentation to industry players took place on Thursday.
With legislation restricting tobacco and liquor advertising imminent, newspaper houses feel they have the right to defend their commercial interests. Cigarette advertising remains one of the major sources of ad revenue and was worth close to R180-million in the past year. According to the All Media and Product Survey, adspend on tobacco and related products for the year ended July 1996 across the entire industry was R176-million.
Despite this, Jacobsohn says, the committee is not a tobacco lobby but is dealing with the “principles” of commercial speech.
“We are therefore not accepting funding from any tobacco or liquor body. We are not pretending that we do not have a vested interest, but at the same time it is legitimate for us to defend our commercial enterprises,” Jacobsohn says.
“I can’t tell you what steps we are embarking on, but I can confirm that consultants have been hired and they will be presenting us with a report. Assuming the plan devised by the consultants is accepted, we will be presenting it to the Marketing Industry Trust,” said Jacobsohn, adding that the envisaged year-long campaign could be estimated at about R1- million. He argued that the consultants fee will be a “mere fraction of this cost.
“For God’s sake do not write a story saying we are hiring consultants at a cost of R1- million,” he said.
However, the documents show that more than half of the R900 000 needed for the campaign will be spent on consultants. Sent to various newspaper stables, the documents also outline the proposed budget for the campaign, which is summarised at the back of the memorandum for the perusal of industry players.
Jacobsohn details, among other things, that strategic consultants O2 (Dr Thomas Oosthuizen and colleagues) will assist with preparing a strategic plan. About R460 000 is expected to go to consultants.
Consultant and full-time manager of the committee Graham Langmead receives R144 000 per annum, plus out-of-pocket expenses and incidentals (R56 000). A consultancy fee to O2 for strategy, lobbying and overseeing of programming is given at R260 000.
Jacobsohn notes in the memo that the consultancy fees to Langmead and O2 “may seem high”, adding: “But this will be a tremendous time-intensive campaign in terms of personal meetings, lobbying, etcetera, for the next 12 months and I believe that will earn their fees.
“None of the PMA members, fully employed as we all are by our own companies, have the necessary time to dedicate to this critical campaign. Hence full-time consultants are essential.”
Jacobsohn is cautious to add that incidentals and out-of-pocket expenses by consultants will be scrutinised and approved by the committee before payment is made.
At the time the document was sent by Jacobsohn, it had the full support of the Association of Marketeers and the Association of Advertising Agencies (AAA). However, a mandate was still needed from the PMA and its affiliate, the National Press Union.
PMA assistant general manager Estelle du Toit says she would “hate to shoot the proposal down” and refused to say anything that would “jeopardise” the planned move.
But The Star’s general manager Graham King was not convinced that the exorbitant fees proposed for the consultants can be justified. “The Independent group is not in favour of how the budget is being structured. We believe it can be improved,” he said.
Langmead said he could not expand on any of the proposals as it would be “morally wrong” to do so before informing stakeholders of the details.
Chair of the Marketing Industry Trust and the AAA, John Little, says he is unaware of the proposed budget and has to wait for it to be presented to him for approval. The trust has to be approached for funds. The funds will be drawn from the 0,65% advertising levy included in media rates, which, in turn is collected by the South African Advertising Research Foundation on all display advertising.
This levy is then handed to the trust, which will allocate money to the foundation and to the Advertising Standards Authority. “If there are funds remaining, and the committee that is applying for funds is confident that its initiatives will benefit the industry, then a portion of the funds will be allocated to that committee,” Little said.