The assessment of the economic offer lowest above the creative proposal and the demand for high turnover These are the two areas in which the call for public advertising tenders has worsened in the third quarter of this year, according to the Observatory of Public Advertising and Communication Competitions.
This wave has considered 114 public advertising contests
The report is prepared and published quarterly The Faith (Association of Communication Companies) and supported by lto ACT (Association of Transformative Creativity Agencies). Following the criteria of the analysis, on this occasion it has considered 114 advertising contests with a budget equal to or greater than 100,000 euros. In total, the contests analyzed have totaled an estimated total budget of 192.4 million euros, which represents 76.5% of the total advertising and media contests.
However, La Fede points out that between July 1 and September 30, 1,301 public contests related to advertising and communication have been called, including digital actions, merchandising, sponsorships, public relations, etc. Of them, 374 contests They specifically requested advertising, creativity, planning and/or media purchasing services, with a total budget of 251,677,344 euros.
The main finding of this wave is that the 73.4% of contests advertising publics called in the third quarter of 2024 do not follow the criteria considered by the sector as more logical for an open, fair and effective process.
It is worth remembering that These criteria are: that the financial offer is not the main award criterion; that the deadline for submitting projects is equal to or greater than three weeks; that budgets are not excessively reduced in relation to the service; that does not restrict competition; that establish two routes of presentation; and that billing demands are reasonable.
Failure to comply with criteria in advertising contests
When comparing the data for the third quarter with that of the previous ones, a similar behavior is observed, although two criteria worsen, while three others improve slightly. The presentation routes remains the most unfulfilled, with 97.4% of tenders establishing only the electronic method. The figure, however, drops almost one percentage point compared to the second quarter.
In second place is the reasonable billing. 94.9% of public tenders require excessively high billing from advertising companies, which represents an increase of more than 2 points compared to the previous period.
However, the criterion that worsens the most is that of economic offerwhich is valued above creative and technical proposals. 58.1% of the public tenders analyzed fail to comply with this aspect, compared to 55% that did so in the previous wave of the report.
On the other hand, the criterion that presents the most notable improvement is that of submission deadlines. Thus, the percentage of competitions that establish deadlines of less than three weeks has decreased from 51% to 43%.
Failure to comply with criteria by administrations
The report also analyzes non-compliance with the criteria, focusing on the convening administrationsand concludes that on this occasion the general default rate stands at 70.3%, in line with the 70.5% of the previous quarter.
However, the administration that most fails to comply with the criteria is the provincial, with an index of 85.7%, and a significant worsening compared to previous periods. Administration follows local, with 80.9% non-compliance.
For their part, the administrations central and regional and public companies improve their default ratios. The pronounced decline in the central administration is due to the fact that it barely called contests this quarter.
Featured advertising contests
As is usual, the Observatory highlights some public advertising contests called to illustrate non-compliance with the criteria considered appropriate by the sector. On this occasion, the one called by the Community of Madrid for the purchase of space in the media and other media for institutional advertising.
It had a budget of 27.5 million euros and, according to La Fede, it failed to meet all the criteria: the financial offer represented 70% of the valuation; It gave only 19 days for the presentation of proposals, and this had to be done exclusively electronically. In addition, it required a billing equal to or greater than the contest budget.
It also points out the tender for the Management of the Visit València Foundation of the Valencian Community, with a budget of 196,350 euros. It only established 10 days for the presentation of proposals, imposed electronic submission and, in addition, also required participating companies to have “civil liability insurance for professional risks for an amount equal to or greater than the estimated value of the contract.” Positively, the price only accounted for 30% of the valuation.
The report also mentions the competition of Altea City Council, which gave 5 days to present the proposals and in which the financial offer represented 79% of the scale for the award.
