COI Budget Cuts Just the Beginning

In the UK, the Central Office of Information (COI) has reported a fall in spending on advertising, marketing and research in the past year, and has warned of more substantial cuts to come.

Total COI spend fell by £9m over the last year, to £531m. Spend on advertising fell £18m from £211m to £193m. Online advertising, however, took a bigger slice with spend up 10% to £44m. Spending on research fell 7% to £27.4m.

The Labour Government's advertising and communications spend leapt from £344m to £540m between 2005 and 2009. Commenting on the figures Francis Maude, the cabinet minister who earlier this month suggested the UK's 2011 Census could be the last, said Labour's spending on advertising was 'inexcusable' and that 'the last government thought the right answer to everything was to launch an advertising campaign'.as frozen spending on government marketing and communications. Recent high-profile campaigns include the £75m 'Change4Life' anti-obesity drive: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has already indicated that this spend is unacceptable and has hinted that the food and drinks industry may be called in to help fund it, causing alarm in some quarters.

Maude says the coming year will see a new approach: 'Only essential campaigns will be approved and we will look at new, more efficient ways of delivering government communications'.

The latter could include 'more partnerships with brand owners, media owners and civic groups, as well as increasingly innovative approaches to joining up paid-for and other media channels' according to COI Chief Executive Mark Lund. Lund says his organisation 'must play its part in helping reduce the deficit'. He comments: 'This year we are more focussed than ever on achieving outcomes at a much lower cost.'

Other reports indicate that the COI is working on a 'shared evaluation service' to measure ROI for all government marcoms spend.

Web site: www.coi.gov.uk .