The argument of the judges is that the law violates the human right of free trade, since it prohibits the resale of advertising space by classifying it as an illicit activity. However, they decided that resale is a lawful and common practice in various sectors of the economy and not only in the field of advertising.
To media agencies, said Fabiola Davó, president of the Mexican Association of Promotion Agencies (Amapro), in an interview last February, reselling helps them to give a more competitive price, since, when buying space by volume, they obtain discounts that they can pass on to their clients as part of an added value.
Before this law, when a client wanted to buy advertising space, he approached an agency, which he paid not only to get said space, but also to take care of all the management, which was often accompanied by a marketing strategy. . Consequently, the agency kept a percentage of the money. The call fee of the agencies.
With the initiative of law, it was sought to promote transparency in advertising agencies, in addition to combating and preventing commercial practices that harm both advertisers and consumers, so that agencies were prohibited from acquiring space and then reselling it to consumers. advertisers. Neither can they provide simultaneous services to companies and the media, nor receive commissions from the latter for the provision of services to brands.
However, the regulation of advertising united the industry against it, since those involved affirm that the law was made from ignorance of how the sector works, and in its implementation, competitiveness and the free market are slowed down.
The weak points of the law
López assures that this law has several weak points. One of the most notorious, he asserts, is the lack of clarity about what and who the medium is. For example, the influencers, the point of sale or the shelf per se.
There is also no certainty on the issue of sanctions, since there is talk of a percentage of income, but it is not specified what income, if they are from a specific period or per project. And when it comes to content, there is no certainty about what kind of content is considered advertising.
“We understand that this law was born with the purpose of caring for transparency; however, it is very poorly designed because it has gaps and gaps and, above all, many gray areas that are subject to the interpretation of an authority, which is also not an expert in media buying and planning,” the executive mentions.
