Deputies propose allocating space for outdoor advertising through competitions

Deputies of the Perm City Duma proposed to hold tenders for the installation of advertising structures not only in the form of an auction, but also in the form of a competition. The administration of Perm, which today renegotiates contracts on the basis of auctions, was not satisfied with this proposal - according to officials, it will be difficult to objectively evaluate applicants according to the proposed criteria, and this will create precedents for litigation. A number of representatives of the advertising community interviewed by Kommersant are not against competitive procedures. Others believe that the Duma members are lobbying for the introduction of this procedure in favor of one of the local players.

Yesterday, at a meeting of the Perm City Duma Committee on Urban Affairs, changes to the regulations on the procedure for installing and operating advertising structures were considered. In addition to a number of other innovations, the document involves the introduction of competitive procedures when concluding contracts for the installation of outdoor advertising. In particular, the project provides that when installing free-standing structures in the central planning area of Perm, in areas of restrictions on the conditions of protection of cultural heritage sites, parks, gardens and public gardens, streets of special urban planning significance, as well as advertising structures mounted at bus stops , landscaping objects, street furniture, bidding is held in the form of a competition, not an auction. The criteria for determining the winner of the competition are: annual fee, technical design, equipment of the advertising structure, including the method of connecting it to a power source, equipment with devices for automatically changing advertising images, energy-saving lighting technologies, timing of installation and completion of work to restore the disturbed area, landscaping adjacent territory, and a number of other parameters.

The initiators of these changes were a group of deputies. The document is recommended for adoption in the first reading; amendments will be accepted until March 5th.

As one of the developers of the project, City Duma deputy Vasily Kuznetsov, explained, the document brings local standards into compliance with federal legislation. “The law gives an understanding of trading as both an auction and a competition; for some reason, we usually don’t differentiate between these. As for the criteria, the administration itself can propose these criteria. The document that exists now is just an option; now it needs to be worked out and prepared for the second reading,” the deputy noted. He also added that a working group based at the Perm Chamber of Commerce and Industry participated in the development of proposals, and representatives of the advertising community were also involved in the discussion. Let us note that the chamber is now headed by Marat Bimatov, a former active participant in the outdoor advertising market in Perm (he headed the Paritet Group of Companies).

The project proposed by the deputies received a negative opinion from the city administration. “Among other things, a competitive system was proposed there. We believe that this issue at least needs to be studied. The competition involves evaluating some additional criteria other than money. And it is quite difficult to objectively evaluate and compare such positions as appearance, modern materials and structures, and landscaping between two contenders,” says Viktor Ageev, deputy head of the Perm administration. The results of assessing such ambiguous criteria may be grounds for the losers to challenge the results of competitions: “And this, of course, can affect the timing of placement. The administration believes that this kind of innovation needs to be approached very carefully, with very clear criteria for making a decision, otherwise it will be an opaque system that is not entirely clear to potential participants,” Kommersant’s interlocutor concluded.

As the Department for the Development of the Consumer Market of the Perm Administration (URPR) explained to Kommersant, today contracts are concluded on the basis of auctions. “This year we have expired the placement period for eight contracts, auctions have already been held for five of them,” said the head of the URPR, Akhso Arekeeva. According to the department, from January 1 to July 1, 2013, more than a thousand contracts for the installation of advertising structures expire.

Director of Paritet Group of Companies Boris Galkin explained to Kommersant that the advertising community took part in the development of the document together with deputies. “This year the validity period of the majority of contracts expires; new contracts must be concluded based on the results of tenders, as prescribed in the federal law. The main message of the changes proposed by the Duma is to bring local legislation into line with federal legislation,” notes Mr. Galkin. “The form can be different - an auction or a competition. In 23 regions of the country this process has already begun, in 14 of them competitions were held, in the rest - auctions. Both forms are practiced in Yekaterinburg,” adds the advertiser.

Director of the advertising agency Lege Artis Anton Tolmachev believes that the changes will create preferences for individual companies: “Replacing transparent auctions with competitions means creating special conditions for some of the local market players.”

Svetlana Bykova

You can’t imagine “outdoor”