Creative agencies have called new plans by the GMA Network to offer a full suite of creative services to advertisers "unfair".
At a meeting last week, the Philippines' 4As called on GMA not to bypass advertising agencies, following the network's controversial 'Weapons of mass attraction' offer to clients.
This service would provide clients with through-the-line advertising services across 15 GMA platforms, which range from TV to outdoor.
The announcement raised fears that clients and media agencies would go straight to the media owner, thereby sidestepping proper compensation to advertising agencies for intellectual property.
According to Universal McCann MD Venus Navalta, who is president of the 4As, the current practice is for GMA to hire freelancers to execute ideas produced by creative agencies.
Bolstering this practice is GMA's stronghold over media outlets, which allows it to offer attractive incentives, such as free media, to clients.
"One suggestion that came out of the meeting was that instead of farming out the execution of agencies' ideas to freelancers, GMA should go back to the creative agencies for these services," said Navalta, who added that no conclusions had been reached at press time.
JWT vice-chairman Matt Seddon, however, believes that "GMA's actions clearly show the need for our industry to deepen our offering and develop broad scale ideas which work beyond the traditional 30 second TV spot".
In the Philippines, up to 65 per cent of adspend is devoted to TV. According to Navalta, 90 per cent of the country tunes in to either GMA or its rival, non-metro broadcaster ABS-CBN.
Earlier this year, ABS-CBN also announced plans to offer creative services to clients. Navalta said the 4As would be engaging in discussions with the broadcaster later this month. According to first semester results, both free-to-air networks have faced declining airtime sales.
Additional reporting by Sara Yin
