In an age when almost any kind of
information is available to anyone who knows how to look for it,
you'd think it would be almost impossible that an agency with all the
resources of government would fail at getting its message out.
In an age when government seems to know
more about you personally than you may be comfortable with them
knowing, how could they fail to figure out that they can't get you on
board with their plans?
The answer to both questions can be
obtained reading news reports on Canadians' reactions to the federal
government's costly Economic Action Plan advertising.
It costs $100,000 to put a 30-second ad
into TV coverage of this year's NHL playoffs. At those prices, you'd
think government would expect some kind of payoff for placing them.
So would taxpayers.
But not only are those ads woefully
ineffective, the predominant viewer response to them now reads onto
the scale of annoyance.
And therein lies the answers to our
questions, or partial answers anyway.
In our information age, it appears that
getting a government's message out regarding its policies and
objectives is actually pretty difficult. Especially if the message is
more about message than action.
On the Economic Action Plan alone,
about $133 million has been spent to convince you of the plan's
merits. But that $133 million worth of advertising is falling on deaf
ears.
One report on the government web site
dedicated to informing Canadians about the plan
(www.actionplan.gc.ca) has
averaged 12,600 hits a day. But a poll taken in April calling on
2,000 Canadians found only three people who had visited the site.
Curious, I checked out the site myself,
and found it rather uninformative. I found three tips on tax
deductions that I could not use (I haven't adopted any children; I am
not a first-time charitable donor; and I have no caregiver costs to
deduct). Any professional tax filing agency would already have that
information.
The rest was what news people call
“government bumph.”
There, saved you the trouble.
And the last time anyone checked (which
was a long time ago), there have been zero calls to the toll-free
1-800-O-Canada phone line, which the ads direct us to use. Operators
are still standing by.
Worse, a poll taken last November (and
released over the Easter weekend, when fewer people pay attention to
the news), shows the all-time lowest approval rate of government
performance for the plan — 38 per cent.
Polling on government advertising is
mandatory under federal rules. If government is spending our money on
advertising, we who pay for it all are entitled to know if the ads
work.
The approval rating of respondents has
averaged about 43 per cent since the program began in 2009. But as of
last September, Canadians' acceptance of the ads — and their cost —
has hit a wall.
So rather than improving the product,
the government decided to stop asking for approval rates on the
polling they are required by law to do. All they ask now is whether
you recall seeing the ads, and whether you did anything as a result.
Well, did you, and did you? There's
your answer.
It's not that the government doesn't
want to know we don't approve of costly ads for programs that have
very little effect on employment rates or small business prospects.
One ad in the series once promoted a government support program that
didn't even exist.
The government's own in-house polling
knows all that and more, about our opinions. The uncomfortable
questions about our approval have been lifted from the polls, because
the results must be publicly reported.
They know, but they don't want you to
see a report that they know.
It is pretty amazing that telling
Canadians about the thousands of new jobs created or the businesses
that have prospered because of the Economic Action is so difficult.
Maybe because there's not a whole lot to talk about, considering the
money that's been spent.
But do not believe the government does
not want to know if you approve of their spending. They do. They just
don't want to alert you that they know the program isn't working.
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