DOAA members, agencies endorse draft agreement on volume discount

Delhi Outdoor Advertising Association (DOAA) finalised the draft of the proposed agreement on volume discount in a meeting held in New Delhi on June 20. The meeting was attended by the DOAA office bearers and members, and officials of key OOH media agencies. At the meeting, Ritesh Vasudeva, Joint Secretary, DOAA and head of Hindustan Publicity, gave a brief on the draft agreement and informed the house that the agreement is for the betterment of all concerned and will go a long way in addressing the problem of payment delays from clients. He said that major agencies like MOMS, Platinum Outdoor, and Bates (Kinetic Group) have already signed the agreement.

On this, Bhaskar Pandey from DDB Mudra observed that the "90 days clause of payment to qualify for volume discount” should not matter to media owners as 90 per cent of their payments are released well within 90 days.

Ritesh Vasudeva added that as 90 per cent of payments are received in time so a small percentage of 10 per cent should be excluded from volume discount. The media owners and agency officials discussed the draft agreement and decided to accept it.

The agencies informed the house that most of have implemented DOAA's early decision on maintaining a minimum campaign period of 10 days. However they pointed out that some of the media owners were seen to be running campaigns for less than 10 days and are offering the same to clients. On this, Sudhir Haryal, Treasurer, DOAA and MD, Planet Advertising, assured that such things will not happen in the future and urged the agencies to bring any such development to the attention of the association.

The agencies also raised the issue of some clients defaulting on payments to particular agencies and moving their business to other agencies. They urged DOAA to blacklist such clients "which eventually will help the media owners”. The DOAA members assured the agencies that will be able to look into the matter but the agencies will have to become associate members of the association to make the intervention legally more tenable. The agencies accepted the suggestion.
Commenting on the outcomes of the meeting, Mukesh Gupta, General Secretary, DOAA and MD, Graphisads, told Outdoor Asia that "the draft agreement on volume discount was accepted by all the members and agencies present. It was heartening to see the enthusiastic participation of the agencies in the meeting. They have also shared their insights on key matters.”