An open letter to the SAMAA Committee -- Danie Esterhuysen

Dear Committee Members,

I hereby wish to thank you all for the wonderful gift I received this XMAS (2010).

Let me explain:

A while back, I had an argument with SAMAA about some adverts I placed in various SAMAA Newsletters. The end result of this argument was that I decided not to advertise in the newsletter again. On receiving repeated e-mails to place new ads on time, I relented and decided to start advertising in the Newsletter again.

This year, with the regular e-mail prompting ad placements for the December issue, there was a notice to the following effect:

“The SAMAA Committee decided that for the 2010 edition, requests for ads on the front page would be accepted on a TENDER basis only”

At this point it is necessary for the membership to understand where this comes from as they do not know what the original argument was about.

I took SAMAA to task on the placement of my first “SANTA” advert on the front page a few years back. I felt at the time that in the absence of any guidelines for “FRONT PAGE” adverts, that I did not receive what I paid for.

1)      I ordered a Half page in Colour but the advert on the front page was slightly more than a Quarter page.

2)      I was originally charged nearly double for the ad but after I pointed out that I was only prepared to pay the advertised price in the SAMAA magazine, did SAMAA relent and we came to an agreed price which I paid.

In the following two December issues, I requested the front page again and continued with my “SANTA” delivering ASP Engines adverts. In both instances I at least got the full Half page adverts I requested but in both instances SAMAA wanted to charge me more than the advertised rate for a Half page in Colour, because they believed that an advert on the front page should cost more.

I insisted on paying the advertised price and clearly indicated to SAMAA that should they wish to charge more for a front page ad, they must decide on a suitable rate and publicise it together with the other in the newsletter.

This year, in their wisdom, they still did not publicise a special rate for the front page but rather decided to put the front page out to tender. I am sure that they were of the opinion that they were going to get some really fat offers for the front page.

One evening, I discussed this with one of my friends and asked him what he thought would be a reasonable offer to which he replied R6000. I laughed at him and said that I would never pay such an amount. He then stuck to his guns and said that dealers would possible even tender more to get the front page spot. Our friendly “argument” ended in a bet and the amount we settled on was his R6000 guess.

As we all know by now, there were no takers and our December 2010 Newsletter greeted us with the 2010 Glider Nationals.

In the absence of a publicised price for the front page, and their “Tender” process, SAMAA lost my regular December “Half page” advert and the revenue that could have been earned. I, on the other hand, won a nice R6000 bet which paid for the inside of the front page (WHOLE PAGE) and I got some change.

THANKS AGAIN SAMAA

Danie Esterhuysen