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MANILA – December 13, 2013 – Less than a month after the Media Specialist Association of the Philippines (MSAP) took a leave of absence from the Advertising Board (AdBoard), the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines filed its own leave of absence.
Incoming IMMAP president Michael Palacios said the concern was that IMMAP had envisioned AdBoard to be representative of the entire industry. "It’s hard to imagine it being representative if the agencies are not part of it and the advertisers are not part of it," Palacios told adobo.
IMMAP was the fifth association to leave, following MSAP on November 11, Philippine Association of National Advertisers late last year and the 4As and the Advertising Suppliers Association within months of each other earlier this year.
"What we’re hoping for is that this all gets sorted out in 2014, and then we’ll reevaluate. It’s not a permanent thing," Palacios said.
The departures have left AdBoard a shell of its former self as it approaches its 40th anniversary, a previous report said. The membership crisis and the launch of a competing festival, Ad Summit Pilipinas, next year forced AdBoard to cancel the 23rd Advertising Congress, originally scheduled at press-time in Davao.
Palacios also said that IMMAP hopes the issue can be solved collegially. "We look at everybody like, you guys have been around for a while, and we’re just the new kid on the block. Let’s show the industry, let’s show the Philippines that we can coexist," he said.
