Well, it’s no surprise really that the Commonwealth Auditor General has slammed the Rudd government for it’s advertising.
In fact it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a detailed look at all state government advertising too.
According to former Ad News journalist Kirsty Needham in the Sydney Morning Herald, the federal budget allocated $114 million to advertising to sell policy changes including the $38.5 million on the mining tax, $29.5 million on the health and hospital network, $16 million on the national broadband network and $30 million climate change.
That’s a huge amount and could be spend supplying nearly six packets of crumpets for every Australian in the current discount war between my local Coles and Woolworths supermarkets (or just over four stubbies of VB per Australian).
The story said that the auditor general Ian McPhee had told a parliamentary committee that Labor changes in advertising rules make it easier to justify campaigns rather than be more accountable.
While the Rudd government isn’t yet spending as much as the Howard government it means it has the potential to spend more if it wants to.
And that’s dangerous. I remember in particular in 2000 when launching the new tax system Howard spent more than $151 million on advertising – nearly $8 for every Australian (about one bottle of Yalumba Viogner on discount from Dan Murphy’s for each Australian).
At the time Advertising Federation of Australia was concerned that the industry’s image could be damaged (as well as that Labor would cut advertising).
As I said earlier this week the ad industry has done nothing to try and moderate successive government’s ad spending. And it should.
At the time I spoke to Paul Nix, head of external relations at Procter & Gamble, one of Australia’s largest advertisers, on behalf of The Australian. He’d had trouble buying TV airtime because of government advertising and said of the tax reform ad campaign: “It was a tremendous waste of taxpayers’ money. At that time, during the five months the tax campaign ran, it was difficult for mainstream advertisers to buy airtime.”
This campaign hit some consumers 50 to 60 times a week, overkill in any media buyer’s book.
Nix’s point at the time was that the Government should take another look at its media schedules and the weight of its campaigns.
As we all know there is an optimum reach and frequency to make an impact on a target audience without pissing them off. Any more and the money spent is wasted.
It’s time to educate the pollies and stop me making-up silly statistics involving crumpets, beer and wine.
Well, it’s no surprise really that the Commonwealth Auditor General has slammed the Rudd government for its advertising. In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a detailed look at all state government advertising too.
According to former AdNews journalist Kirsty Needham in the Sydney Morning Herald, the federal budget allocated $114 million to advertising to sell policy changes including the $38.5 million on the mining tax, $29.5 million on the health and hospital network, $16 million on the national broadband network and $30 million climate change.
That’s a huge amount of money and could be spent supplying nearly six packets of crumpets for every Australian in the current discount war between my local Coles and Woolworths supermarkets (or just over four stubbies of VB per Australian).
The story said the auditor general Ian McPhee had told a parliamentary committee that Labor changes in advertising rules make it easier to justify campaigns rather than be more accountable.
While the Rudd government isn’t yet spending as much as the Howard government, it does mean it has the potential to spend more if it wants to. Which is dangerous.
As I said last week, the ad industry has done nothing to try
and moderate successive government’s ad spending. And it should.
I remember in particular in 2000 when launching the new tax system Howard spent more than $151 million on advertising – nearly $8 for every Australian (that's equivalent to one bottle of Yalumba Viogner on discount from Dan Murphy’s for each Australian).
At the time, the Advertising Federation of Australia was concerned the industry’s image could be damaged (It was also worried that Labor would cut advertising). At the time I spoke to Paul Nix, head of external relations at Procter & Gamble, one of Australia’s largest advertisers, who had trouble buying TV airtime because of government advertising.
Nix said of the tax reform ad campaign: “It was a tremendous waste of taxpayers’ money. At that time, during the five months the tax campaign ran, it was difficult for mainstream advertisers to buy airtime.”
This campaign hit some consumers 50 to 60 times a week, overkill in any media buyer’s book.
Nix’s point was that the Government should take another look at its media schedules and the weight of its campaigns.
As we all know there is an optimum reach and frequency to make an impact on a target audience without pissing them off. Any more and the money spent is wasted.
It’s time to educate the pollies and stop me making-up silly statistics involving crumpets, beer and wine.
