Financial Times

Drama over premier ad industry awards scheme
War of words continues between SLIM, advertising industry
Strong words were exchanged between the Presidents of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) and the 4 A’s (Accredited Advertising Agencies Association of Sri Lanka) last week as the dispute grew between the ad industry and SLIM over the annual advertising awards.

SLIM rejected a call by the 4 A’s and the IAA (International Advertising Association) to withdraw from the next SLIM awards and announced it was going ahead with the 17th annual event on March 4, 2006. The two industry bodies are piqued that SLIM has refused to accept all its proposals for major reforms to the event and have now withdrawn from participation.

The war of words however, continued this week. 4As President Kenneth Honter sent an equally strong reply to Nishan Navaratne, SLIM President, after the latter’s December 23 letter to Honter said: “This is the SLIM Ad Awards and it is not the Burnett or McCann Ad Awards’. It will remain this way to uphold the integrity and SLIM will not compromise on this. Your decision to hoodwink your member agencies not to participate based on false accusations and pressure from other associations may result in the cancellation of the awards show and we have lost total credibility of your institution’s ability to represent your member agencies. Therefore we wish to exit from our MOU with immediate effect.”

The reference to Burnett and McCann was because Honter works at Minds, part of the Grant McCann group, while IAA President Ranil de Silva is at Leo Burnett. Honter, in his December 27 letter to the SLIM President, accused the latter of continuing to attempt to create dissention within the ad industry. He said Navaratne had also tried to intentionally marginalize all non 4A’s members by restricting the SLIM awards to 4A’s agencies only.

Responding to an accusation that he (Honter) was not present at one of the meeting between SLIM and the 4As, Honter said the meeting referred to was more than well represented by the 4 As Board -- Keith Martenstyn 1st Vice President, Laila Gunesekera 2nd Vice President, Dilith Jayaweera Honorary Secretary and Rohan Rajaratnam the Immediate Past President “while sadly the Board of SLIM was represented by only Lewie Diasz and yourself.”
Honter said not a single clause in the MOU (between SLIM and the 4As) has been adhered to in the last two years by SLIM, despite numerous attempts by 4A’s to enforce it.

In his letter, Navaratne regretted 4As non participation at the annual awards saying “your industry will be at the receiving end with the decision you have taken to not participate in the awards show.”

In a separate letter to members of the 4As, its president said the reason to seek reforms to the SLIM awards was based on the phenomenal improvement in creativity in regional markets, such as Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and now China in a short span of time.

“We asked for a meeting along with the IAA. It was turned down. We sent two joint letters that took ages to be replied, the delay which we believe now was premeditated and planned. We met with SLIM at the one and only official meeting that was held and your Association was well represented by the most senior 4 Board members, though SLIM responded with just two Board members.”

Honter said all the reforms were suggested in a written document were commented on just 24 hours prior to “an announced Agency Briefing. A cavalier attitude that clearly reflected the stance that SLIM had chosen. The manner in which all this was done left us with no doubt that the intentions were not genuine, that SLIM was not really concerned about the Industry. We would once again, pay for our entries, pay to witness the event, pay for the social, develop the campaign, sometimes done free of charge, organise the event and after all that, the Industry would not benefit, either professionally or financially.

How could an association that was formed to safeguard the interests of the industry turn a blind eye to this deliberate and transparent attempt to camouflage the only objective of the SLIM Awards this year; stage the annual event and rake in funds for the marketing association?”

Honter said the IAA is also a part of this initiative and protest and ruled that this paves the way for a more united, local ad industry. The 4A’s and the IAA have begun to formulate an acceptable blue print for an Awards show that is being planned for mid 2006, his letter said. “Some of our clients are sponsors and have approached the agencies for guidance on continuing the sponsorship.

To the best of our knowledge 3 sponsors have already informed the SLIM organizing committee of their decision to withdraw their support.” The 4A’s and the IAA jointly held a media conference on Friday at the Barefoot Gallery to further explain its position and give the industry the opportunity to clear any grey areas that may exist.

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