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Guess who will be forking out the 2.5 million bucks to be advertising on the Super Bowl on Sunday. And more to advertise during the NCAA Basketball Tournament in March. And the Daytona 500. And the Winter Olympic Games. And American Idol.
Pepsi? Microsoft? Budweiser? Wrong, wrong and wrong! The correct answer … the U.S. government! Yep, the deficit-riddled folks in Washington thought it would be a good idea to spend $340 million dollars to educate and promote people mailing back their 2010 Census forms.
Besides spending $140 million on traditional media like t.v., radio, print and outdoor, where else are they forking out the dough?
How about a $15 million, 15 van “road tour” at events around the country – like Mardi Gras in New Orleans? Yep, that’s just one of the tour stops! Can’t you just imagine “Hey, throw me some beads and I’ll toss my census form to you!”
How about a 3 minute “viral video” featuring Ed Begley Jr. (has Begley even acted since his early 1980s days as a doc on St. Elsewhere?). Does it really count as “viral” if it’s been seen fewer than 10,000 times?
How about “Census Week” at all of the schools … so your kids can come home and bug you into filling out the census instead of learning math and reading!
How about a marketing microsite complete with multiple languages, blog, twitter and YouTube links, tour videos and more.
The folks at the Census make a great point on the fact that for every one-percent increase in voluntarily mailed returns, the government can eliminate approximately $80 million dollars in putting Census worker on the street knocking door-to-door. They say their marketing efforts during the 2000 Census proved that advertising works, so they stepped it up even more this time around. Hey, they’re right … advertising works! But are we really to think that all the money saved is going back into the piggy bank to pay down the national debt? If you believe that, we’ve got a cheap timeshare in Florida to sell you!
I wish we had clients who, in this economy, could spend more then they earn – and decided to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing communications campaigns designed to reach every American an average of 42 times over the next four months. Unfortunately, our clients in the real world don’t work that way.
Here’s a $10 idea Census folks … why not require people to answer their census forms in order to get their tax refund? You’d likely get 50% participation just doing that!
Congrats U.S. Census, you’re our worst of the week.
Author: Ad Mavericks
www.lessingflynn.com
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
With “people” like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck urging people to not fill out all the information on their census forms, and the crazy wingnuts telling people to shoot census workers on site, the money is needed to publicize the census.
Every dollar received from the federal government to state and local governments is based on census count. It’s stupid not to be counted.
By the way, the census is mandated and only once every ten years. Considering it takes one million dollars to send the average soldier to war, this seems like a bargain.
Wow. Really? Do you really think advertising to the inebriated at Mardi Gras is a good use of their $$? That is just the initial question I have for this campaign…there are so many more I don’t know where to start
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