Saatchi & Saatchi pocketed $36,000 for much-maligned NSW Govt Stoner Sloth campaign
The widely-panned Stoner Sloth campaign cost the NSW Government more than $350,000 and took up 268 hours of public servants’ time, according to figures obtained by the NSW Green Party.
According to the breakdown of figures creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi was paid $36,386 for the work, according to figures given to The Guardian by the Greens. The campaign portrayed stoned teenagers as giant sloths struggling to operate in social situations.
While launched at the end of November, the campaign made headlines in December after being picked up and widely parodied in social media, with The National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre distancing itself from the work, and NSW Premier Mike Baird describing it as “quite something” on Twitter.
At the time the campaign was quoted as costing $500,000 of taxpayer’s money, although that is thought to include the 38-days worth of public servants’ time, on top of $351,790 in hard costs.
According to The Guardian $115,000 was spent on “research and evaluation” including $64,000 on market research, $136,700 was spent on production – a figure which included $59,814 for production company 8Com Australia and $23,000 for the actors – with $99,990 going to the state government’s media agency UM.
At the time Saatchis defended the campaign, with a spokesperson telling Fairfax media: “The videos we created were designed as part of a preventative campaign specifically for teens; the audience is not for adults or long-term cannabis users.
“Two different creative approaches were pre-tested by independent researchers among the teenage target audience, which verified the potential efficacy for this campaign.”
According to media monitoring company iSentia the campaign had 1,174 media mentions in December including 148 stories on TV and 856 on the web.
The campaign also gave rise to a number of parody videos:
So the agency was only paid $36,000, while market research was paid almost double this ($64,000) and media was paid a whopping $99,990. That’s triple the price of all that creative development, for some junior to post a bunch of online videos.
That’s the real crime here. Sounds like there wasn’t enough funds for a senior team to even look over this.
User ID not verified.
Would love to see an analysis of the enormous media value they gained from the campaign…. still talking about it now.
User ID not verified.
Maligned by who? People way to old for it and not being targeted.
This campaign (which is clearly getting noticed) is still being scrutinised. And yet the money spent on pointless and forgettable Fed Government ‘Innovation’ ads slides down the drain.
User ID not verified.
I’d love to see how many hours were used by Saatchi to earn $36K. It would have been a lot more than 268 hours. Without flexi time.
Creative agency does the work, earns nothing and cops flak. That’s not right. Creative is massively undervalued in this market.
User ID not verified.
The artist does the work; the gallery makes the money.
User ID not verified.
UM were paid $100k for doing what exactly?!?
User ID not verified.
Is there a zero missing here?
If not there should be
User ID not verified.
$36k is an absolute steal for something that has caught fire in social. Highlights the terrible state of the industry and how badly we have devalued the IP of our best thinkers
User ID not verified.
Stop stressing over this folks. Fire up a fatty, breath in, breath out, move on.
User ID not verified.