Although there is a single theme running through all the campaigns – getting us all to think about our impact on the planet and getting us to lower our carbon footprint – there has been a variety of creative executions.
They offered us up a visually stunning creative image with muddy footprints showing everyone has a carbon footprint.
They then moved onto a simple message, with simple solutions, offered up through a simple delivery with ‘Save money, save energy’.
They showed how to save the planet by saving water with ‘Save water’.
Then a bedtime story played on our guilt by suggesting we will leave an apocalyptic future for our children if we don’t ‘Change how the story ends’.
And now we have the latest campaign which asks us to ‘Drive 5 miles less a week’.
The campaign that sticks out is the advert with the dad and his family. It is by far the least creative of the bunch, its delivery is not as powerful, its message is not a strong, but it is by far the best advertising of all the campaigns.
It is entirely focused on trying to change behaviours and not on the far greater challenge of trying to change people’s attitudes of climate change. Although there are snippets of encouraging a change of behaviour in the other adverts, their core theme is the wider picture of global warming.
Everyone has heard about the climate change and some may feel strongly about it, but the majority are indifferent to it. It is not relevant to their lives or they may not be able to see what impact climate change could have on them.
The creative powerhouses washed over my mum, she didn’t scoff at them nor did she turn into an eco-warrior, it just didn’t produce any strong emotion, it genuinely didn’t effect her. But the adverts with the dodgy dad made her take notice. The advert will help lower carbon emissions through the back door as what it was asking us to do was achievable, it is relevant to people and it offered a benefit -saving money.
Climate Change is such a massive issue and it is easy for people to feel overwhelmed by it, but the dad advert is by far the best as it empowers people instead of making them feel powerless.
Companies have cut back on their marketing expenditure during the recession but the government has done the opposite. Government ad spend during the previous financial year was a record £211m, up 35% on the year before. This has helped someway to plug the gap that has been left by a shrinking of commercial advertising spend. Now of course the advertising and media industries must be terrified that if the government cuts back before we are out of the recession they are going to be in trouble.
There has been a recent trend that government ad spend shot up in the run up to a General Election. So it may be lucky for advertisers and the media there will be a poll next year.
Accusations have been thrown at the current government of increasing ad spend in the run up to the past two elections, in particular the last three months before the polls open. Have a look at the lovely graph I made, the orange bars show COI’s advertising spend in the financial year before the elections held in 2001 and 2005, both of which were held in May.
Figures show in the run up to the 2001 General Election advertising spend was £60 over three months. This was double what it was the previous year and almost half of the year’s entire budget. £16m was spent in January 2001, this rose to £16.4m in February and ad spend ballooned to £30.2m by March.
And amongst the 15 campaigns that were launched was a £3m campaign targeting benefit fraud. Why not have a watch yourself of some vintage government advertising…
Fair enough you might say, we have to target those dam benefit cheats and this advert may put the frightners on them. However the government was accused of not even targeting the campaign at those likely to commit benefit fraud. Panorama used a couple of media analysts to show that press ad expenditure was almost all in the ‘quality press’. Titles such as The Times, The Telegraph were used while The Sun, The Mirror and The Star were largely ignored. I’m not in trying to flare up a class war, but those likely to commit benefit fraud would probably favour the tabloids. So the message was accused of being targeted at those key middle class voters, the ones who’s support would win a second term for Labour.
Reassuring voters
Opponents have accused the government of trying to sneaking party propaganda into publicly funded ad campaigns. It’s not a new argument, Tony Blair levelled the accusation at the Tories in the build up to the 1987 election. But are sexual health, binge drinking, drugs and knife crime ads merely launched to reassure worried voters the administration is taking action on issues of public concern? Are they about reassuring the middle classes or are they intended to help solve the problem? Take the government’s new climate change campaign (picture at top) is this meant to help persuade people Global Warming is a serious issue or is it meant to reassure the green vote and persuade skeptics that the government is taking climate change seriously?
There are two arguments that critics throw at the government. The first is that government launch campaigns (like the benefit fraud spots) to reassure skeptical voters and not really to try and tackle the problem. However surely this cannot be said of the majority of government advertising campaigns, which are launched to try and tackle serious problems. Adverts are needed for public sector recruitment, to inform of new or changing laws or change people’s opinions about serious social issues. Adverts launched by the NHS about spotting strokes or quitting smoking cannot be viewed as political and are genuine attempts to help solve serious problems.
However the other and perhaps more damaging criticism is that the government jacks up it spend in the year preceding an election in the hope that a blitz of advertising will create the impression of furious government activity, in doing so persuade sceptical voters the government is working hard and tackling sensitive issues that are of concern.
Ad blitz in 2010?
Of course if advertising spend does jump again – particularly after last year’s record spend – it will lead to huge criticism of Gordon Brown and his government, especially as the public debt is at a record level. But with an election being held in either May or June the polls will have been closed for some time before the COI publishes it annual report in July, therefore the government may not have to worry too much about the backlash of ramping up its ad spend from now until the election. But an indicator that the government is beefing up its spend will be obvious to all. First the award of accounts after a number of pitches and then the inevitable bombardment of campaigns that will hit our TVs, magazines, radios, billboards, bus stops, buses and newspapers in early 2010.
Mark Lund, the chief executive of COI, recently told Campaign: “Government campaigns can help save lives and save money.” Well Gordon Brown may be hoping a government advertising blitz in the build up to the 2010 Election will help save Labour MPs and save his government.
While the government has been busy promoting energy efficient light bulbs, in a bid to oust traditional incandescent ones, it seems they have wasted their time, money and effort.
The government, along with the EU, has been that busy pushing incandescent bulbs into extinction that they didn’t see the rise of the LED.
LED bulbs are three times more energy efficient than current energy savings ones, they light instantly, have no mercury in them and last about 10 times longer.
LEDs have been around for a while but bulbs were expensive to produce costing around £20 a pop.
But now scientists have found a way to produce the man-made Gallium Nitrate, which is used in LEDs, cheaply and so bulbs will now cost only £2.
If they were used across the country they would cut the amount of electricity needed for lighting from 20 per cent to 5 per cent every year.
And the best part they are expected to be ready for sale in a few years.
Instead of building more power stations to feed energy wasting light bulbs scientists are dreaming up ways to our cut energy usage.
The Government has party funded this research through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, but why is the Labour Government not applying this principle to the rest of its energy policies?
They seem to have it the the wrong way round.
Labour Ministers are obsessed with talk about creating electricity rather than reducing the amount we use.
Instead of dreaming up plans for nuclear power stations and a new coal plant at Kingsnorth, why are they not providing cash and incentives to insulate homes, businesses and public buildings?
Gordon Brown should start an energy efficiency revolution to reduce our energy consumption, slash greenhouse gas emissions and lower our energy bills.
We need more political action on energy reduction and less on energy production.
