The NSW government's highly controversial 'Stoner Sloth' campaign cost more than $350,000 to roll out, according to new information that has come to light.
According to costings obtained by NSW Greens member of the upper house Dr Mehreen Faruqi and shown to AdNews, the campaign took 265 public servant work hours to pull together, at a total cost of $351,750.
Of that, Saatchi & Saatchi was paid $36,386 for the creation of the campaign. UM was paid $56,567 on the media buy, with an additional $43,423 for media planning fees and production, amounting to a total payment of $99,990.
The 'Stoner Sloth' campaign was launched in November but gained social media attention nearly a month later after it was lauded for being “hopelessly bad” and “unintentionally hilarious”.
The ads used videos, gifs, social media, and a dedicated Tumblr hub to showcase the impacts of smoking marijuana, using the tagline “you're worse on weed”.
To showcase just how much worse you are, an actor dressed as a sloth is used in the ads to highlight the consequences of using the drug.
It was originally reported that the campaign cost $500,000, but new figures have amended the cost of the project.
The spend includes production costs of $136,700, $59,814 of which went to production company 8Com Australia with a further $23,000 on talent pay.
Research costs for the campaign amounted to $115,000 split between the Sax Institute and the University of New South Wales, SMPR, University of Technology and JWS research.
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