Disquiet on the Set as Shops Try to Ignore Elephant in the Room: SAG Contracts

Demand for Digital Video Conflicts With Industry's SAG-AFTRA Contract.

The rapidly changing marketing environment is creating a skyrocketing need for digital video as budgets stagnate or decline, and that is crashing up against the ad industry's contract with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Often referred to as SAG-AFTRA or just SAG, the group sets a floor under the rates for talent. "The more online becomes the main viewing habit and the more prevalent viewable video becomes, something has to change," said a C-suite agency executive, one of more than a dozen senior executives who spoke to Ad Age on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity around the subject. "We're using so much more of the talent that you can't pay the same rates as when you created just a few TV spots a year."
Decades-old agency networks are all locked into SAG contracts that commit them to using SAG-AFTRA actors at SAG-AFTRA wages. But many independent agencies, large digital agencies and even creative shops that came of age in the last 10 years have declined to sign, reserving much more flexibility in casting and pay.  
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