National associations mobilise to support media outlets

Since the WFA National Associations Council meeting on April 3, several national industry associations have been sharing developments on the actions and initiatives governments and their associations have been leading on to support the advertising industry and local media, with the current COVID-19 pandemic already having an adverse economic impact on the media sector.

Some governments are offering tax relief packages (Italy, Australia, Greece, and city of Tallinn) and national associations in other countries are calling for similar measures (Argentina, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland).

Several European governments have also allocated funds to support the media (Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Norway and Sweden) although media associations in Estonia and Norway indicated that the government support scheme is unsufficient to maintain operations of several media outlets and are calling for more funding and support.

In Australia, the government has announced plans to enforce measures by which platforms such as Google and Facebook will pay for news content. In April, Ireland has mooted similar proposals.

In the UK, ISBA has developed guidance on how advertisers can manage COVID-19 keyword blocking, amid fears of severe ad revenue losses for local news outlets.

In France, Union des marques and other industry associations launched a TV ad thanking brands who kept their ads running during the Covid-19 crisis. This initiative has been replicated in New Zealand and Australia and similar initiatives have been done in Italy and Spain. In the Netherlands, advertising agency for public broadcasters STER, with the support of the Dutch brands association bvA and other industry associations, launched 'Door Dik & Dun', an initiative which provided free airtime on TV and radio for industry organisations.

In Greece, the Hellenic Advertisers Association (SDE) published a ‘Decalogue’ manifesto, urging their members and advertisers to not stop advertising during the pandemic. A similar call to advertisers has been made by bvA in the Netherlands.

A full overview of government and national association activities can be downloaded here.