Ad industry uber body set to be called The Communications Council
The uber body for the Australian advertising industry is set to be called The Communications Council, with the slogan “Commercial creativity and connection”.
The boards of AWARD (the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association) the AFA (Advertising Federation of Australia) and the APG (Account Planning Group) will hold extraordinary general meetings next month to ask their members to vote on the creation of the new body. AWARD and the AFA, the two biggest bodies involved in the planned merger, will hold their meetings on November 17 in Sydney. The APG, whose board backs the move, does not require a member vote.
The plan would then be for The Communications Council to begin life on January 1.
The proposed merger was revealed at the beginning of this month. Its scope had originally been proposed to cover the Media Federation too, but the MFA turned down the move.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He returned to Mumbrella as Publisher in January 2025
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er….if this is to be called the ‘communications’ counsel, why is there no PR representation?
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What a bland name for a supposed representation of the ad industry. Surely they can do better than that?
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Hmm – it’s a very broad moniker. And just representative of the ad industry. What about PR, business communications, creative design etc etc? Demonstrates (again) a very narrow view of the world (ie that the sun rises and falls only on the ad industry). Disappointing.
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The three bodies merging are involved in the strategic development, creation and execution of advertising.
The merged body is there to serve these industries.
Why do they have to include all other disciplines like PR etc?
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Can’t really see any reason why this should include the other industries such as the PR industry, given that this is mainly supposed to be an Ad Industry body.
Agreeing that the naming might have been slightly more interesting…!
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i really hope this body represents the interests of the social media consultant too.
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er James, Simon, as per mine and Jacqui’s posts, it’s presumptive and simply wrong for an advertising peak body to call itself “The Communications Council”.
changing it to the “Paid Communications Council” would be more accurate
they’ve undermined their credibility from the outset
very dumb
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Hey Sven,
I don’t necessarily agree there – I don’t feel that any of the bodies that are being merged are going outside of their current charters at this stage, which would be necessary for them if they were going to start to bring in PR and other industries such as Creative Design etc.
Understand the comments you’re making but obviously my argument was not in disagreement. I don’t agree however with the perspective you put around the basis of the activity…I actually feel that bringing these bodies together might make it much easier to get the discussion and engagement necessary to deal with real issues that the industry faces and to ensure that there is better tracking and management of Industry level discussion.
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