ABG Board Meeting for Appointment of the Consultant

Shadi Kandil and Asad Rehman presented an UAE X-Media Update to the ABG Board on behalf of the UAE Audience Measurement Committee.

The objective of the meeting was to sign off on the Consultant’s scope and costs for managing Phase 2 of the project. Attached is the deck that was presented to the board, which included a short update on the Comms Plan (already shared and approved by the committee), and a quick update on our docking with WFA.

Key actions from the meeting were:

• Out of the three scenarios presented on the day (slide 9 of the deck), ABG Board’s direction is to pursue a combination of Scenario 1 (get ABG members to contribute to the funding) and Scenario 3 (fund the gap by proactive offer by some of our members). While this is being done, keep in mind that:
  • Not all ABG members will be willing or able to contribute, regardless of the amount – purely due to COVID and the impact on certain businesses
  • It is important, at the same time, that we give the opportunity to as many members to participate as possible, as it makes the project truly owned by the industry and not just by a few members of the committee.
• ABG will send a request out to members asking them to confirm their voluntary contribution. The letter will go out this week and will set a time of two weeks for members to revert
• Once we know the extent to which the members are able to contribute, the rest of the amount will then be under-written by ABG (from their existing reserve) as well as by the committee members who have shown willingness to support the initiative
• It was also made clear that the contract of the consultant, and hence the work coming out of Phase 2, will be the ownership of the ABG – hence the industry and not that of a particular organization. ABG will take care of the necessary legal due diligence needed at that end
• It was also agreed that ABG will manage the issuance of POs as well as invoices and payments to the consultant