Ad in£initum

Good question: Will PM Brown cut Labour’s adspend?

Me, the guy with a public service medium: "Gord, I hope not!"

Me, the poor taxpayer: "Gord, I hope so."

Me, the adman/publisher/parent who believes that persuasion is a great thing to invest in... if done well: "Gord. Whatever you do, just make sure the ROI's add up!"

I stand in awe of the sheer amount of guff being funded, by 'us', to persuade 'us' to do stuff. Most makes a lot of sense, though one could argue 'til the cows come home about the ethics of using public money to further certain agendas that may or may not be as in in the public interest as they might.

But where I get very concerned is when the vast amounts splurged seem to be placed with quangos to dispense, and the actual numbers all get a little lost in the wash, along with who is responsible, accountable, etc.

Take my pet area, the environment. We now have literally scores of NGOs, often it seems with overlapping remits, who first of all establish empires of offices, officers and... comms budgets.

Then they blow them. And, speaking personally as a strategist and creative, they blow them on some pretty odd or poor messages.

And even if there is measurement, the measures sometimes don't add up. If I had £20M to spend, I should reckon on a 7% 'increase in awareness', as I think I saw one such quango crow recently, as being pretty average. I only just put down a PR from another, with a vast online budget and lord alone knows how many staff, bigging up a site that has had 7,000 hits! Er... my aunty's has had more.

And then, to add insult to injury, one gets the odd tabloid expose of the sheer number of board members of said quangos whose already multi hundred thou salaries are further boosted by meeting and exceeding targets.

So let me get this straight. Our money is used to punt out endless comms to get us to do more (which may or may not actually help the real issue) to boost rates that help us fork out more in bonuses?

So... let's make that a qualified no to your question.

At least, not until the accountability is improved.