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.

We open with a helicopter shot of the Maldives...

In the spirit of boundless optimism, all my TV scripts started that way. Sadly, never once did it come to pass. I doubt it was much to do with nascent eco-concern on my clients' parts.

So I was interested in this:

Agencies risk axe from COI roster over eco credentials

What counts as a 'valid environmental policy'?

Is it ticking some boxes to keep yet another overstaffed quango in business, or actually engaging in tangible practices across the board that lead to a genuine enviROI?

It's driving me insane.

Drivers to be red-faced if they don’t choose a green car

All they could be doing, and their first thought* is to throw how many
£million of my money at an ad agency and more than happy media
world to persuade me not to do buy something they permit to be sold?

Barking!!!!

I demand my money back.

*Assuming this report to be true.

Public Swervants

I am writing to David Miliband this week on a few issues (it will be interesting to see the response, if any, that is generated), and again the notion of Kismet pops into my head as I am provided yet more fuel to my fire. A few weeks ago I wrote to the Central Office of Information (COI - who place all the ads telling us what to do, and engage the agencies and media to do it in) via their online site resource:

I am writing on behalf of Junkk.com, which is a website devoted to improving the public's understanding of, and engagement with environmental issues.

I'd would be grateful for the contact of someone at COI Communications to discuss how we could further mutually rewarding synergies.

Someone has now kindly replied, but I'm not sure if he quite realised (or realised all too well), how it would go down:

Your email was forwarded to our digital Media team and their response was if they have a requirement in the further they will be in touch but for now they don't think it's something they would use.

You might want to consider approaching either the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (http://www.defra.gov.uk/) or the Sustainable development Commission (http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/).

He was polite and most helpful and responsive. So I hope my reply was fair in the circumstances:

Thank you for taking the time to reply and the advice given.

I am glad that your colleagues in digital media will be in touch if required, but it's disappointing, not to mention a tad hard to see how a free resource promoting environmental issues is 'not something they would use'. In all my time in agencies, such a gift horse would have been both welcome and enthusiastically embraced on behalf of my clients, in this case taxpayers. I do hope they do not mean to infer it is fruitful to deal with those who would charge like wounded bulls. For my part there was a lot I am sure they could have helped me with in terms of information, press releases, etc.

I am aware of the other two opportunities and they, I presume, in us, having been in touch before. But will persevere.

This is a country in crisis. And a government in disarray, run by self-interested empires with public service and actually doing anything very low on their daily career path targets. Something must change. Or be made to.