Rudd turns off the advertising tap
The Rudd Government’s pledges to cut back on its media spend appear to have come to fruition, according to annual spending figures from Nielsen.
The stats – published in the latest print edition of AdNews – has seen the government cut its spending by nearly 30% and slip to the nation’s fourth biggest advertiser, from its previous second place.
Meanwhile the Victorian Government is now a bigger spender than NSW.
Telstra also cut its adspend, by about a quarter.
Government spending fail
Good initial signs from KRudd but let’s hold judgement back until the next federal election is called and see how much government advertising aka “public education campaigns” takes place in the 6 months beforehand
Before we all shout a collective “hurrah” to the news of a reduction in promotional pocket money for government, we should also consider the opportunity cost of that curbed spending. And by this, I mean the opportunity cost to Australian society.
Federal and State government marketing campaigns usually fall under the umbrella of “social marketing” and so behavior change is the goal of communications (rather than selling more stuff as in the private-sector).
There’s a fair amount of documentation about the effectiveness of such campaigns e.g. quitting smoking, anti drink-driving, childhood immunisation … and these government campaigns can boast an enviable ‘R.O.M.I’ of “saving lives”.
And so you have to ask – is curbed ad spending by government automatically a good thing? I’d like to know where the 30% reduction has taken place, to be reassured that the cut in spend was not ultimately cutting any lives short.