Delhi Outdoor Advertisers' Association: Setting a benchmark

In its last few meetings, the association has set some guidelines to safeguard the interests of the media owners

Though Delhi Outdoor Advertisers' Association (DOAA), a platform meant to organise practices related to outdoor advertising in the capital, has been around for 10 years, it became active only in 2008. Currently, the association has 25 outdoor media owners as its members, including Pioneer Publicity, Adwel Advertising, Selvel Media, JCDecaux, Parivartan, Jagran Engage, Graphisads and Greenline.

Delhi Outdoor Advertisers' Association: Setting a benchmark

The association has been organising meetings more often to address the issues related to the smooth functioning of the outdoor business. Discussing the importance of the platform in the current scenario, Mukesh Gupta, general secretary, DOAA, says, "It has never been easy to organise an industry such as outdoor and it's all the more challenging to get media owners (who are running in different directions for personal interests) on a common platform. During the initial days of DOAA, everyone laughed at what we were trying to do. Now, we are a strong body and will continue to work towards betterment of outdoor practices."

In its last few meetings, the association has taken some major steps to safeguard the interests of media owners. Nowadays, many campaigns are executed for a short duration of seven-10 days. This creates problems for media owners as the license fees payable to authorities is usually on a monthly basis and once a campaign is over, there comes a period when the ad space is left vacant for some time.

Now, DOAA has decided that the minimum duration of campaigns will be 15 days.

Secondly, it was observed that in most of the cases, before the execution of campaigns, no formal confirmations were sent to the media owners by the agencies or clients. Orders received were either verbal or received incomplete (especially without mentioning media rates) via email. The association has decided that from April onwards, no media owner will execute campaigns before the receipt of the formal payment order.

Last year, the members of the association expressed their concern over the delay in payments by the agencies. In some cases, it was discovered that the agencies held back payments for three-four months and tried to extract discounts in the name of payment rebates.

With effect from January 1, the association members have decided that the maximum credit period allowed to any agency or client will be 60 days from the last day of a campaign. If payment is not made within the stipulated time period, DOAA will intervene and try to resolve the matter between the agency/client and the media owner. If there is a default on the part of the agency or client, the DOAA will blacklist the same. Also, there will be penalties for defaulter media owners.

The association has also found that many reputed agencies were holding the monies without any reason or dispute. DOAA will look into all such pending issues and take steps for recovery.

With the Commonwealth Games around the corner and the emergence of a connection between the development of infrastructure and outdoor advertising, a step towards getting Delhi's outdoor business more organised is in the interest of not only the advertisers and the outdoor property owners, but also the residents of the city.

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