National’s Advertising Campaign
March 26th, 2012 at 2:00 pm by David FarrarThe expense return from National tells us quite a bit about what mediums they chose to advertise in, which is interesting to analyse. I’ve summarised and compiled them in descending order.
| Item | Cost |
| Billboards | $ 422,550 |
| Creative Contractors | $ 335,650 |
| Final fortnight newspaper ads | $ 322,345 |
| TV/Radio Ads production | $ 194,282 |
| Pamphlets | $ 187,900 |
| Direct Mail | $ 157,013 |
| Internet Ads | $ 113,565 |
| Campaign Song | $ 79,912 |
| Marchandise | $ 51,231 |
| Hoardings | $ 43,888 |
| North Shore buses | $ 29,037 |
| Staff | $ 26,697 |
| Auto phone-calling | $ 26,339 |
| Ethnic Newspapers | $ 20,255 |
| Woman’s Day | $ 14,516 |
| Campaign Bus | $ 10,697 |
| Misc | $ 6,253 |
| Events | $ 5,899 |
| Website/Social Media | $ 4,513 |
So billboards were the largest expense item, which is no surprise as they have been a hallmark of the 2005 and 2008 campaigns also. The contractors were next largest item followed by the final fortnight newspaper ads in all metro and provincial daily newspapers.
The taxpayer may pay for the airing of the TV and radio ads, but National paid almost $200,000 to produce them. Pamphlets and Direct Mail were then next largest costs.
A fairly significant proportion of the budget was spent on Internet advertising – over $110,000. And the bastards didn’t spend a single cent on advertising on Kiwiblog 
Someone did well out of the campaign song at almost $80,000.
Over $25,000 spent on auto phone calls. Personally I hate them and think they piss people off and cause them to not vote for you. But having said that it would be interesting if National measured turnout rate amongst those who got and did not get an auto phone call to see if they had an impact.
When you look at what you get for $2 million, it isn’t a lot. I don’t think anyone can claim our spending limits are too high, when they are less than $1/voter. The majority went on four newspaper ads, 97 billboards, two pamphlets of which one was direct mailed, and some Internet advertising. This is hardly drowning the voters in advertising.
I’ll be doing a similar analysis for other significant parties.
Related posts:
- Third Party Advertising
- The EB need a campaign manager
- Alcohol advertising
- ACC advertising – unnecessary and false!
March 26th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
$80,000 for a campaign song??? Really, did anyone decide to vote for National because they liked the song???
Personally, I couldn’t tell you what the song was, and I really don’t care what the song was. Seems like $80,000 they could have put into more billboards and internet advertising to me.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
I’d be really interested in seeing some research on the effectiveness of automated phone calls in NZ. We got one and I honestly could not believe it – I just burst out laughing and then asked my wife to listen – she had much the same reaction.
As for the campaign song – what was it?
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
$335k on creative contractors? Name and shame, Nationals campaign featured some of the worst creative I’ve ever seen!
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
It was the Feelers. I thought it was an excellent campaign song. A good year for them, as they got to sing the Rugby World Cup campaign song too.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
I’m still curious as to who the hell makes their voting decision because of a seeing a billboard.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
There wasn’t a single newspaper ad – even in local newspapers – that promoted both the candidate and the National Party? Whodda thunk?
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
“A fairly significant proportion of the budget was spent on Internet advertising – over $110,000. And the bastards didn’t spend a single cent on advertising on Kiwiblog”
Thats cause you are one big national ad and you do it for free!
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
I thought the National Party campaign song was this one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19bbUN3YX04
But seriously. I like the Feelers. Been to the concerts. Have the song on my iPod. But I’ll wager that at least 50% of National’s demographic thinks the Feelers are just noisy guitars, and would rather just have that nice Val Doonican fella.
$80k wasted.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Link for the song please
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Four newspaper ads. Yep. Safe to say the left-leaning rule makers have done a good job controlling the messaging we hear around election time. What a joke.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Panda did extremely well out of the deal it seems.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who admits to voting because of the song but it will have affected some swing voters, almost subliminally, that’s what it is meant to do.
It’s the swing voters they are targeting, that’s the upside to National not having any major coalition partners, there aren’t many parties they can bleed core voters to. It’s the same reason Kiwiblog didn’t get any advertising dollars, no point wasting money preaching to the converted. Beside they probably figured DPF was getting enough $ via the polling operation
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Advertising on Kiwiblog?
Why, would have been a huge waste of money.
Preaching to the converted!
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
No mention of how much was spent on KFC………….Ohhh thats right only Labour have that expense.
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
You’re an idiot backster
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Good luck with Winston First… hell it seems to take the privileges committee to get him to be honest about his funding….
Oh and for Labour – how do you count all the time from the unions and how transparent is their KFC voucher system ?
Vote:March 26th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Dooooh – you did say “significant” ….
Vote: