Advertising body lines up agenda for effective communication

The Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) has decided to up the ante to make advertising more efficient and effective.

Aiming to make ISA a catalyst in enhancing value and knowledge of commercial communication for advertisers, the society's new chairman Bharat Patel and its executive committee has devised a new strategy.

"ISA will focus on achieving three critical objectives in the coming years -- to make advertising more efficient, more effective and to bring out the positive role of advertising," Patel said.

Patel, who is also the chairman of Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care, also hopes to make ISA more pro-active to press for withdrawal of taxes that adversely affect the ad industry.

To start with, ISA together with Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), Indian Newspaper Society (INS) and Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) had filed a writ petition against stamp duty on advertising contracts imposed by the Maharashtra Government.

"We are in favour of pushing back taxes that affect the ad industry adversely. Stamp duty acts like tax and the state government has no constitutional authority to tax advertising in print, TV and radio," Patel said.

The petition was heard in the Bombay High Court on September 30. The Court has issued a notice to the government to respond within four weeks.

ISA is also planning to ensure that commercial terms and conditions for advertising are determined by parties concerned and not by trade associations.

"This will prevent any cases of cartelisation or monopoly arising out of cross ownership of media," Patel added.

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has prepared comunication material to project the positive role that advertisements play in social and economic dvelopment.

The ISA, in association with other relevant domestic industry associations, will help in bringing out this material. Patel says this will help consumers see advertising as decent and credible.

Further taking cues from WFA and multimedia management in global markets, ISA plans to delve deeper into the realm of media measurement. ISA will continue to support Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to oversee TV audience measurement system in India and provide accurate, up-to-date and relevant research for the same.

"The diversity in India has so far prevented a uniform measurement system but this issue needs to be looked at closely and ISA will be continue to work towards it," Patel said.