What would you do without self-regulation?

I've just been reading the annual report of the body, ASBOF that funds both the ASA's regulation of direct mail and provides the lion's share of the money to run MPS.  

To cut to the quick the words of the chairman, Winston Fletcher, don't dance around the issue. Revenues to fund these important pillars of self regulation have dropped by nearly a third in two years and the trajectory seems to be continuing. I know that this has been said before (by me in another publication) but that was 18 months ago when we we're merely looking down the slope. It's nice, in a way, to know that I wasn't crying wolf but it gives little lasting satisfaction.

This decline has been caused by a number of factors. Deregulation of postal services has brought competition, improved services and in many cases improved prices. However at that point of change, almost certainly unwittingly, brand owners (via both marketing and procurement) haven't ensured that the important small financial contribution to self regulation sitting at the bottom of every mailsort invoice was paid in the new supply arrangement. In my mind it's as important to a brand as a robust environmental and ethical policy. It's about a small fraction of expenditure now helping to protect our future ability to communicate. We're now riding down the slope at high speed in an environment where these shifts in the postal market have been exacerbated by the drop in direct mail spend. In my mind it's almost certain that the current financial trajectory will cause a partial collapse of the system.

Two questions come to the front of my mind. What would direct marketing clients and the data industry do if the voluntary levy system couldn't support the ASA's and MPS's needs? More importantly what would the government do?

First off we'd be in big trouble. An under funded MPS simply couldn't meet the consumer expectation of the universal free supression service that is a bulwark of self regulation. This could easily cause the second question coming to the fore. Government may well intervene to regulate if the industry doesn't, can't or won't. And government regulation tends to be more expensive, more bureaucratic, less controlable and frankly a blunter tool.

So what should we do? 

Engage, either directly with ASBOF or via ISBA, DMA or ask your agency to talk to the  IPA. All the major marketing trade bodies can help to ensure that the case for self regulation is understood from the boardroom to the postroom.If you'd prefer call me or drop me an email and I'll start the wheels rolling.

Do nothing and the future is all too clear.

Charles Ping is Commercial Director of AI Data Intelligence and a director of ASBOF representing the DMA