Comment: Government advertising

Emily Forargue from the Royal Mail

Monday, 01, Dec 2008 12:00

The government should tailor advertising to groups of voters by making more use of mail.

The government has consistently been one of the biggest advertisers in the UK in recent years, and the last 12 months has proved no different.

Central government departments and agencies constantly communicate with citizens and businesses across a range of policy areas, from health initiatives to tax and benefits advice.

The Central Office of Information (COI) is in charge of large swathes of the government’s marketing budget, and its relationships with the agencies that create and implement advertising on its behalf. The COI recently revealed that the government's ad spend rose by almost 14 per cent during the financial year 2007-08 compared to the previous 12 months, from £135.9m to £154.7 million.

The latest figures provide an insight into which media are growing in importance as part of the government's marketing mix.

Digital media spend accounted for £35.4 million, up from £22.5 million the previous year. This has increased from just £3 million in 2003-04. Advertising spend on broadcast made up £17.7 million of the COI's spend, an increase of £4 million on 2006-07.

Meanwhile, direct marketing, including mail, also showed a healthy increase from £29.9 million to £33.5 million. This is positive news for the direct industry at a time when some other advertising studies reveal that spend on the medium has recently shown a decline.

For government organisations, the task of communicating to the public can be complex given the diversity of audiences it needs to communicate with, and the often difficult or sensitive information they need to deliver. This makes the choice of communication channel crucial.

Campaign managers must think beyond the message, to how you say it, and to whom. To engage people and trust in government information, the content must be simple, effective and humanised.

Television ads provide a wide reach and a great opportunity to get the message across to the public with an eye-catching, memorable burst of airtime. Print media can be useful for more in-depth information, but space is still limited. Poster sites can also grab attention but the message is not always easy to take in as many people are in transit when they spot these ads.

Using the mail, meanwhile, can be a very effective way of reaching all intended audiences. For while people may have access to many TVs, radios and computers, there is only one letterbox into their home.

The use of mail also means that no group is excluded from the ability to receive the information. For example, certain people, such as the elderly, are more likely to shun or simply not have access to new digital forms of communication. By delivering information directly to their homes, government departments can ensure such people are engaged and receive the requisite information.

Meanwhile, research has shown that people are more than twice as positive towards receiving government information through the front door compared with post from organisations in any other sector, so a clear majority welcome such communication.

The option of combining both online and postal channels to reach a broader audience and social demographic is also supported by a recent Royal Mail survey. The results revealed more than half of confident web users (55 per cent) prefer to be contacted by a combination of direct mail and online, while 69 per cent feel that email is best used for supporting or clarifying the mail they receive.

Communications campaigns are unlikely to be one-size-fits-all for government departments, and they need to pay great heed to the cost of marketing drives which come under regular public and media scrutiny. But when it comes to reaching out to the diverse UK population, traditional methods such as the mail should not be overlooked as they still have a key role to play alongside new media.

Emily Fovargue is head of market development at Royal Mail

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