Invision: The Evolution of EDI in Media: No Need to Reinvent When an Update Will Work - Bob Von Kohorn - MediaBizBloggers

Every year cable and broadcast networks and ad agencies cumulatively lose millions of dollars in lost time and cash flow reconciling invoice discrepancies resolving incorrect copy material assignments and airing the resulting makegoods The problem is sufficient to grab the attention of the 4A39s which is developing its 39ebiz for media39 initiative and the ANA which is working on its 39ADID39 asset coding systemMy colleague Ashley Barretto recently pondered in this same space why we seem to be stuck on electronic communications for contracts and invoices when the opportunities are rife to eliminate other inefficiencies in the television buysell process September 9 2009 I on the other hand wonder why we continue developing new approaches to alreadysolved challenges There already exist solutions to the next logical set of electronic transactions which would work perfectly well with minor updating It seems like we keep grabbing the same lowhanging fruit year after year instead of moving to the next logical levelIn the mid90s TECC The EDI Cable Committee developed standards for the electronic execution of new contracts invoices contract revisions and acknowledgments between networks and agencies TECC also developed standards for agencies to electronically send brand allocation instructions and commercial material instructions to networks The new contract and invoice EDI transactions were implemented after much rumination and survive to this day in various stages of evolution These two transactions alone have saved agencies and networks countless hours of manual labor and avoided innumerable invoice discrepancies After more than 15 years of usage these transactions have certainly earned their keepBut what happened to TECC39s contract revision brand allocation and commercial material instruction designs Two of the largest agency system vendors have nearly completed implementing their versions of electronic contract revisions whereby two versions of a quotnewquot contract are compared amp8211 the original quotnewquot contract and the current quotnewquot contract as it appears after months of order changes amp8211 and the delta is determined Presumably agencies will want to verify the delta represents approved changes and update their agency systems to reflect the current orders39 status But this approach though potentially cost effective causes a lost opportunity for communicating change approvals and maintaining transaction audit trails The company I work for has already seen agencies and networks experience difficulty trying to resolve the delta in which perfectly valid network order maintenance changes are being rejected by the agency system for seemingly meaningless reasons If only they had better communicated along the wayMore importantly though our rush to technological empowerment could undermine our ability to maintain sound business controls ADID is a fabulous concept Its implementation offers potentially huge savings and may enable many industry advances amp8211 huge accolades for ADID But quottraditionalquot network advertising requires proper inventory management and commercial scheduling both so that networks can maximize inventory utilization and avoid basic product scheduling conflicts Imagine this an agency executes a large Upfront buy with network The agency buy is for an advertiser with 20 brands The network confirms the buy using a generic quotcorporatequot brand and reserves generic inventory in several programs across the Upfront year The traditional brand allocation dance ensues and the network assures the advertiser39s units are scheduled so as to maintain selfprotect guidelines and also avoid product scheduling conflicts with competing brands This process is of huge importanceWith ADID39s potential agencies could simply send the ADID to the network anytime up to shortly before air and the network would be able to quotgrabquot the matching content from a virtual digital server and air whatever material the ADID designates Agencies could make lastminute changes for under and overperforming brands by simply switching out the ADID copy on that virtual digital server The brand allocation and commercial material instruction processes could be all but eliminated except that doing so will risk product conflicts and underutilized network inventory Time that might have been sold as multiple units to multiple brands at appropriately negotiated CPMs could instead end up being sold as one large unit with an ADID being sent for multiple cuts representing what are actually entirely separate commercials A clever agency could even do a timebuy for entire commercial breaks and resell the time to several advertisers managing the differentiation of commercials via several multicut ADIDs ScaryThe industry must assure the basic inventory controls of proper brand allocation and commercial material instructions are maintained as it implements such technological improvements as ADID The earliermentioned largeagency vendors39 systems that determine the delta between the original and current quotnewquot contracts need to assure that routinely acceptable network maintenance doesn39t gum up the works and create more work than it39s intended to saveMaybe it39s time to dust off update and consider implementing those unused TECC transactions for contract revisions brand allocation and commercial material instructionsBob Von Kohorn is Senior Business Analyst for INVISION IncRead all Bob39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Invision MediaBizBloggers

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Invision: The Evolution of EDI in Media: No Need to Reinvent When an Update Will Work - Bob Von Kohorn - MediaBizBloggers

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