Ralston on Govt advertising
March 29th, 2009 at 10:13 am by David FarrarBill Ralston writes in the HoS:
John Key’s memorable line about Labour’s “hug a polar bear” programmes, ineffective campaigns that sound good but don’t deliver results, wryly summed up this Government’s contempt for many of the touchy-feely, state-funded marketing campaigns the last Labour administration spawned.
Much of the many millions spent on these things proved to be a cynical exercise to try to convince New Zealanders difficult problems were being effectively tackled when, in reality, they were not.
We face a childhood obesity epidemic, so run a series of ads on television telling kids to eat their vegetables. Not a single kid will be inspired by it to munch on more broccoli, but the public will be reassured that something is being done.
Can anyone honestly tell me that they have been provoked into leaping from their couch and start running around outdoors by Sparc’s inane Push Play campaign?
The total advertising spend by the last Government was massive. There is always a need for certain Government services or policy changes to be communicated, but one has to especially wonder about so called social isses campaigns. Some are effective, but some miss it.
Sure, some public education campaigns are necessary and do achieve results.
For example, the mental health campaign fronted by John Kirwan demonstrably achieved results in changing New Zealanders’ attitudes towards people with psychological issues.
Kirwan and others involved in that programme have taken the stigma out of mental illness.
Yep that is an example of a really good campaign.
Are we having fewer injuries around the home since ACC started mounting campaigns advising us not to accidentally have an accident?
The answer I am pretty sure is no.
Related posts:
- Ralston this week
- Analysing the PM’s “assurances” on advertising
- Ralston on spin
- Ralston on Electoral Finance Bill
March 29th, 2009 at 11:40 am
The last Government had mountains of extorted taxation. Spending it on TV campaigns made State Owned TV appear efficient and profitable.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Some of the problem of ineffectual government public address type advertisements/programmes is that the people designing then do not have the the experience to build them.
You cannot encourage exercise across general population if your personal life is spent in an office, your six pack ab’s formed on a machine and your running schedule designed for an inside olympic track. Combine this hygenic disconnected style of “exercise” with a government who wants to pay a lot of money for a very slick up-to-the-moment promotion and the intended effect has been necessarily filtered out.
Remember John Walker? When asked what was a good diet he replied you could pretty much eat what you like within reason. Or how about Arthur Lydiard a major proponent in the art of “Jogging”. These are the type of people that change the fitness levels of a nation. They’re individuals, not State entities and they succeeded by finding pathways into fitness that the average man could understand.
As for telling people not to have accidents, no so smart, but showing people how to avoid accidents is smart. Neither of these things requires public money, but hell, since we’re spending, why not get it right?
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Ralston-
“The only problem for National in stripping the public service, reducing the excessive spin machine and chopping the meaningless PR campaigns is that it will lose the protection that these devices afforded its predecessor. Instead of being constantly told by legions of bureaucrats and multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns what a great job the Government is doing, people now will have the ability to make up their own minds based on what they see and hear for themselves.”
A comment that overlooks one important point Mr. Ralston. If the goddamn useless lazy partisan media would get off their ever fattening useless arses and do their damn job, these campaigns would be defeated by the truth.
That’s what your damn job is, to bring us truth.
Not government press releases penned by partisan overpaid hacks.
These positions have arisen, and their output has become so profligate, only because you and your colleagues have allowed yourself to be used by their deceit.
If you had resisted, they would have died away.
But of course you didn’t resist, because for the last ten years, these propaganda fronts have been spinning exactly the kind of bullshit you and your left wing mates in the media approved of.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Easy to jump on the new politically correct bandwagon – but remember Push Play was started by Nats in the 1990s, that lots of research (available via SPARC ) has been done on identifying methods of getting people to consider exercising, that we have an obesity epidemic but not as bad as like countries eg Aussie, US, UK, that the main reason for that is that we exercise more (especially middle aged males) than other OECD countries. Very easy to criticise but consider the possibilty that I worked hard to expand McCully’s initiative was that the evidence was that he had got it right.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
always one for a good spin there Trevor. You may be 100% correct that “Push Play was started by Nats”
The fact remains however that “Tax and Spend” like drunken sailors was started by you lot to the point that the country’s in such a shit hole we cant afford crap like that anymore.
Vote:You’ve driven most high earning middle aged males to countries like Aussie, US and UK
March 29th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Here’s some simple exercise instructions, slowed down so kiwis can follow them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ0TfsaMv-E
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Patrick Starr (1935) Vote: 1 0 Says:
March 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
always one for a good spin there Trevor. You may be 100% correct that “Push Play was started by Nats”
The fact remains however that “Tax and Spend” like drunken sailors was started by you lot to the point that the country’s in such a shit hole we cant afford crap like that anymore.
You’ve driven most high earning middle aged males to countries like Aussie, US and UK
Then he must be regretting his policies that attracted high earning, middle aged males, like John Key to return to NZ.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Trevor, since people respond more to fear than to reward (apparently about a 70/30 ratio), why wasn’t the campaign designed around portraying middle-class males (and females) losing what they valued: e.g. being around to see their grand-children grow up?
It’s just that at present, it doesn’t seem to have the cut-through it deserves.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
“Redbaiter
That’s what your damn job is, to bring us truth.”
Fuck off you authoritarian creep, how dare you tell lies like this. His job is to aid in the selling of as many papers as they can, nothing more nothing less.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Funny thing is, I don’t see Mr Mallard posting comments on the post about Clark and Davis.
Vote:March 29th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Good point Adolf.
Come on Trev, whats the real gossip on that story?
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Well I take more care while up a ladder now directly as a result of one of the ACC ads. Interesting ads, actually. They used to make me laugh until I realised they weren’t trailers for a new sit-com. Now I take them very, very seriously.
Well, relatively seriously.
Actually, they still make me laugh . .. but at least I am more cautious up ladders.
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 7:07 am
You whiney little skirt-hider! Where is your sneering arrogance now that Beloved is no longer in power? Fuck you and and your type. As a minister you tried your hardest to butt-fuck NZ with a Heineken bottle for nine long years and you dare come on here and plead hard work, no liability and competence? Jesus christ you smarmy little shit. At what point did you think that asking people to stick a green ballon on their letterbox, before they set out for a few minutes exercise, was a well researched idea? It was cynical self aggrandisement. You wanted someone to go count those balloons, most likely on the taxpayers tab, and report back to validate how hard you thought you worked. At what point did you figure that if that was the only way of getting feedback, you shouldn’t waste millions of dollars on it? At what point did you realise that if that was the goal of the promotion – justification of expense – then you really didn’t give a shit about the exercise part. At what point did you figure that maybe average joe just chucks junk mail away?
Do you have the recent cardboard telecom photoframe by your bedside containng the picture of your favorite person and have you scribbled their phone number in the space provided so you don’t forget? You must have because it’s what average people do, isn’t it? Isn’t it? It was mailed out to people, so it must have been eagerly accepted by them. Why would it not have been?
What the fuck do you know about average people? Your government’s promotions had nothing to do with reality – which you and your bunch left behind a long time ago – and nothing to do with encouraging exercise in the young or in anyone. You’re completely delusional. Do you think that the M.O. of you and your socialist mates is unknown? Whine, plead for sympathy, then snarl and hit back when adoration doesn’t come? Hopefully you’ll try a similar approach at the pub one day, maybe one that offers cheap chardonnay at happy hour. There won’t be any media hoopla and news at six for you then, no half-arsed tussles in parliamentary corridors. Fuck off, bitch. Nobody cares what you thought you did over the past 9, 10, 15 years or ever. We all lived the pointy end of it. Our job was to fund it, over an over as you pissed it away.
[DPF: 30 demerits]
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Bloody hell, what were those demerits for?
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Wow 30 demerits for telling the truth. Are you in line for some board position or something?
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 8:18 am
demerits for that? check out racer @ 5:56 pm who got nothing.
Vote:Is it what we say – or who we abuse?
March 30th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Slight technical point, DPF … your demerits system states you’ll give “20 points – abusive language” … there actually is no penalty of “30 points”.
That said, goodgod can hardly whinge about getting pinged here. It’s DPF’s site, he’s made it reasonably clear what he’ll do if you engage in abusive language, and there’s a difference between “telling the truth” (in Whaleoil world) and being an asshole.
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Well said goodgod, I have checked out DPF’s rules and I cannot see where you have breached them, IMHO the 30 demerits is not warranted.
Be brave, keep telling the truth.
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 8:33 am
I could’n agree more with the sentiment expressed by goodgod. Harsh words but exactly the way many honest New Zealanders feel.
The demerit points are entirely unwarranted.
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 8:39 am
FFS, you lot. Read DPF’s demerits policy. “20 points – abusive language”. The consider these choice quotes from goodgod (that poet of the masses):
“Fuck you and and your type.”
“As a minister you tried your hardest to butt-fuck NZ with a Heineken bottle”
“Jesus christ you smarmy little shit.”
“Fuck off, bitch.”
You might not like DPF’s demerits system … in which case, you are more than free to boycott his blog. But you cannot seriously argue that goodgod did not breach the rules!
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 11:07 am
The last government certainly did waste a lot of taxpayer’s money on pointless advertising that served to irritate rather than inform. It no doubt that contributed to Labour being unceremoniously booted out of office on 8 November 2008.
Vote:March 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Although I might agree somewhat with goodgod’s main line of argument I still think civility is called for or else we will all be in a madhouse. I think free speech is only possible where there is respect and civility.Otherwise we end up just shouting at and abusing each other.
Vote:So I agree with DPF and think bad language should be punished with more demerits if anything.
March 30th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
This gets my goat. There are so many ads on TV either promoting some aspect of government or telling us how we should live. I know it all started under Labour, but it’s time that National ran the ruler through some of these programs. I don’t need to be told every five minutes that intersections are dangerous, or that it’s time for a cervical smear. And on that note, if you see a Polynesian in a TV ad, you can be almost assured that it’s an ad for some government agency or other.
Vote: