Tag Archives: Rochdale council

Imagine a world where Coke promoted Pepsi

30 Sep
2105363803_ddf2a246e8

A lovely view of Rochdale town centre

Think of the day if Coca-Cola advertised Pepsi on its cans, Vodaphone plugged T-Mobile’s latest new unlimited texts offer, Manchester United embossed ‘City Til I Die’ on their latest strip or Ronald McDonald handed out flyers for Burger King.

It’s pretty hard to imagine and you could argue that it would only happen in some crazy parallel advertising universe. Promoting your rivals seems bit a backwards strategy and let’s be honest its insane to even think about it, but not according to the communication crew at Rochdale council.

They have been advertising near by town centres and local markets on the back of their employee’s wage slips. Neighbouring towns, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge, have made an appearance and as they are just a short journey away should be considered fierce rivals to Rochdale’s own town centre. Although the adverts will no doubt put a few extra pennies in the council’s coffers, the possible long term damage is potentially disastrous.

For one Rochdale town centre has been going through a bit of a rough patch for the past few years, retailers have deserted the town in their droves only to be replaced with a bazaar of pound, pawn and phone shops. Town centre businesses need all the shoppers and custom they can get. So you have to wonder what the logic is behind actively encouraging people to go elsewhere. And the council is not just encouraging the general masses to go elsewhere it’s encouraging its own staff, its own representatives, the very people who are working to try and better Rochdale.

Also what kind of message does it send to council workers that their employer is promoting neighbouring shopping centres instead of its own? It almost shows a lack of loyalty and a lack of confidence in its own facilities. It is unimaginable to find ASDA promoting Tesco’s latest deals on the back of its employee’s wage slips, so why should Rochdale council promote rival markets?

This practice is inconceivable in the real world but somehow seems acceptable to communication professionals employed by Rochdale council.

The cost of delivering promotion

23 Sep

letter-ladyStill no word from Rochdale Council about the total cost of delivering their glossy PR magazine Local Matters. But I can now tell you it is likely to cost over £10,000 to deliver every issue.

I recently put a Freedom of Information request in to find out how much Local Matters costs to produce. It was revealed the mag costs around £20,000 per issue. However this figure was without the cost of delivering it to the thousands of homes across the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale.

But after a bit of undercover reporting I can now tell you what the cost of delivering each issue of the magazine is likely to cost £10,143.*

The council informed me in their response that: “Local Matters is distributed by a local leaflet distribution company. Teams of staff deliver the magazine door to door, usually over a ten day period.”

So I approached a ‘local leaflet distribution company’ and asked for a quote.

My ‘magazine’ was exactly the same size, length, shape and weight as Local Matters. It was being delivered to the same number of homes, across the same area and over the same time scale.  

After a bit of haggling I was quoted £98 plus VAT for every 1000 leaflets the company delivered.

I was told it would be ‘quite some job’ delivering the leaflets due their size and weight and as such they would have to be delivered on their own.

And now with the cost of delivery, Local Matters is likely to cost over £30,000 to produce each issue. That brings the total cost of producing the magazine to £177,636 every year.

Again this raises a serious point about how the council communicates with the residents. Surely the keys points could be compressed into a regular email bulletin and then sent out to people in Rochdale. This would be more efficient, a lot cheaper to produce and also allow information to be sent out immediately. The only advantage Local Matters has is that it can get information to those without internet access. 

* This is only an estimate of what the council will be paying for delivering of Local Matters and is no way an exact figure.

The cost of promotion

23 Sep


Latest edition of Local Matters

Figures have revealed Rochdale council’s glossy PR magazine, Local Matters, costs a minimum of £116,778 to produce every year – that works out around £20,000 per issue.

I recently obtained these figures through a Freedom of Information request to Rochdale Council.

The magazine allows the council to get their uncensored message across to the people of the borough. Arguably this is a great way for the council to communicate with residents, as it allows them to say exactly what they want to say. They have free range to fill the mag with unedited stories and information that is totally on message.

But do the borough’s residents really need the council spending thousands of pounds on this magazine? Surely there are better, more imaginative ways in which the council can get its message across, and in a much cheaper way.

And with a squeeze predicted on local government finances after the next election, this kind of spending will surely be reigned in. As you read this Rochdale council is being forced into some tough choices on cuts, so perhaps it’s time for the council to get creative when it talks to the people. More effort could be used to get the council’s stories in the local media, and of course social media could be better exploited. Although they have made a tentative step into the world of Twitter, there have been a few irregular Tweets, more could be done to communicate through social media at a knock down price.

And back we go to the realities of money. The figure I have quoted is just a minimum cost of Local Matters, the final cost of will be much higher.

The total cost I have been given doesn’t include how much it costs the council to deliver the magazines to every home in the Borough of Rochdale - that’s of course Rochdale, but also Heywood, Milnrow, Littleborough, Middleton and all the areas in between.

The council has for some reason exempted this information under Section 43, which basically protects business interests.

Don’t worry readers I immediately lodged an appeal to the council and I am eagerly waiting for their response.

They have slapped a section 43 on this piece of information and they say the reason is: “Rochdale Council believes that to disclose the information would prejudice the council’s ability to get good value for money when dealing with commercial companies.”

Now hold on Rochdale Council, the magazine is printed by a private company so why can I have this information and not information on the delivery cost.

It is not going to be cheap to hand deliver a thick, glossy magazine to tens of thousands of homes and this is likely to push the cost of the magazine through the roof.

The public have a right to know what the council is spending their money on and the council has no right to block this information. Local Matters is all about informing resident’s of the wonderful borough of Rochdale, so come on 

Full Breakdown of Figures
* 92,000 copies are produced every month.
* In the past 12 months Rochdale council have produced 6 issues.
* Local Matters costs the council the staff equivalent of approximately £9,000 per annum in editorial time and approximately £3,500 per issue in internal design time. The former figure excludes on-costs such as National Insurance.
* It costs £14,463 to print every issue.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 412 other followers