Premier
(1)Whether her department has any communications contract with any external individual or institution; if so, (a) with whom, (b) from when, (c) for what period, (d) what service is rendered, (e) at what cost and (f) what has already been spent on the contract;
(2) whether any other departments are using the same service, if so, (a) which, (b) at what cost and (c) why the service is not rendered in-house?
1) Yes
(a) Contracts are with FCB for media buying and Young & Rubicam (Y&R) for “above the line (ATL)” and “below the line (BTL)” services.
(b) Both contracts started in August 2013
(c) Two years
(d) Below the line, above the line and media buying
Above the line services include:
- Strategic planning and communication plans development
- Creative development
- Digital strategy and execution
- Brand continuity and integrity
- Measure campaign effectiveness
Below the line services include:
- Design work on marketing and other material
Media buying services include:
- Media strategy
- Media planning and implementation
- Rate negotiation
- Media buying
- Post buying analysis
(e) FCB: 3.34% commission on gross media billings;
Y&R: 8% commission on WCG communication spend for ATL and R340 plus VAT per hour for BTL.
(f) FCB: The Department of the Premier has spent R2 307 422.00 from August 2013 to May 2015
Y&R: The Department of the Premier has spent R1 736 991.02 from August 2013 to May 2015
(2) Yes
(a) All 13 WCG departments use services of both agencies
(b) Same as 1 (e) above.
(c) The services are not rendered in-house due to the following:
- The resources and skills levels of Communications units in the WCG vary significantly from one Department to another. This impacts on the "readiness" of Departmental communications team members to effectively execute their departmental communications needs in a manner that enhances the WCG Brand. Communications personnel are more general communications practitioners.
- WCG Departments’ communication needs embrace extremely diverse audiences. Understanding all these audiences; some extremely specialist in nature, is a communications challenge and requires specialist knowledge and skills, to arrive at an appropriate channel selection strategy. This need may be best served by a specialist media agency, in a stand-alone transversal contract, not tied into the success or otherwise of the agency responsible for generating the messaging.
- In addition, not all Communications units within the WCG Departments have recording studios, photographic and video studio, design units and printing works required to develop these campaigns. Some Departments have individual photographers and graphic designers on their Establishments but not all.
- Only a transversal media buying agency can provide the WCG ‘collective’ buying power as it creates efficiency by reducing costs.
The Department of the Premier currently has three qualified graphic designers. Almost all BTL work (including for all the other 12 Departments) is done internally by Corporate Communications in the DotP. Campaigns which require above the line and media buying are outsourced to the aforementioned Communication agencies.
