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to clear commercials
Post 9/11, increased pressure to go fully digital
By David Everitt
For some time now, it’s been clear to many in the ad business that the industry needs a more efficient way of steering commercials through the legal-clearance process.
One thing that has held back the introduction of a new, electronic method for doing this task has been a basic institutional inertia, a reluctance to change.
After 9/11, though, security concerns helped to convince people that the time for change had come.
The American Association of Advertising Agencies has been well aware of the deficiencies in the old commercials-clearance methods, according to Jeff Edelstein, a partner in the law firm of Hall, Dickler, Kent, Goldstein & Wood, who has been privy to 4A investigations into this matter
"The main problem with the clearance procedure for networks and agencies has been that, traditionally, they would have to send storyboards and scripts and all other documents by mail or fax or courier, and the other side would then have to respond the same way. The commercials themselves would have to be sent in cassette form. A rather expensive system.
"But since Sept. 11," he adds, "extra security precautions have encouraged agencies and networks to look for solutions that don’t involve the physical delivery of packages."
There are a number of systems out there now that offer a purely digital procedure via the web for obtaining clearance. One of them of may have a leg up on the others.
NetClear Digital Clearance Solution from DG Systems is now being used by ABC, CBS, WB and Telemundo, along with 22 ad agencies.
"As soon as the creative portion is approved by the agency," says Bob Howard, DG Systems’ vice president of sales and marketing, "the agencies want to get all the material to the clearance department as quickly as they can. Typically, commercials are done very late in terms of when they’re scheduled to go on air, and agencies need a chance to make corrections before the ads go on the air."
NetClear, he claims, can provide more breathing room.
"With this system agencies can get everything to the clearance department within a couple of hours if it’s a crunch situation. Otherwise, if the agency is outside New York or other major cities where the networks are located, they’d have to depend on overnight courier or a complex procedure over satellite."
NetClear is an application program running on a secure server. DG Systems has promoted the program as being simple to operate over network and agency computers, but for a while the company encountered a certain amount of resistance from those firms that it was targeting.
"The issue was between the networks and agencies," says Howard. "They’ve done business with each other for years and years, and they have a certain way of conducting that business. And sometimes agencies wait for other agencies to adopt a system before they’re willing to give it a try."
Another problem had to do with the industry’s experience with prototypes of earlier systems, some of which were clumsy or failed to provide a complete solution.
"There was a certain caution in the advertising community," says Howard. "The attitude was, ‘We’ve been promised solutions before and now we’re just a little more skeptical than before.’ "
DG Systems launched NetClear just 10 days before the Sept. 11 attacks. Like so many other companies, DG Systems initially found that the catastrophe derailed its business plans. "At first just getting an appointment with anybody was difficult," says Howard.
Once the anthrax scare began, however, agencies and networks became leery of depending on mail, messengers or deliveries via airplanes. A digital process like NetClear started to look very appealing.
Another obstacle that was overcome had to do with the electronic capabilities at those places where a digital clearance system would be used.
"Until recently," says Edelstein, "most networks did not have computers that were powerful enough or fast enough to handle this kind of data. Now, I understand, high-speed computers are being installed in the standards-and-practices departments."
According to DG Systems’ Howard, digital clearance programs constitute a step toward a completely digital advertising process, one that would not have to rely at all on video tapes.
"Commercial spots have a very short lifespan," he says, "and a very compressed time frame for producing. They should never be in a tape format. Once the commercial is shot, it should be in the digital realm throughout the entire process, from editing to clearance and transmission."
Before that point is reached, though, some other issues have to be settled.
A few years ago, the 4As set up a committee to look into the clearance issue, but, according to Edelstein, it hasn’t met in the last year and no central body has been coordinating efforts in this area for the advertising community.
Does this present a problem?
"It could," Edelstein says, "unless one system ends up prevailing over all others. It doesn’t make sense for a number of companies to be providing this service if they aren’t compatible, and there still are several companies competing in this area. For now the situation is still in flux."
March 12, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-David Everitt covers technology for Media Life, writing from Huntington, New York.
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