Advertising Done Badly: "Get Ready for Brexit" Campaign

I waited so that I could without being accused of political pointscoring to write about the incredible ad campaign run by the government to quotGet Ready for BrexitquotI use the word incredible in its literal sense The governmentrun campaign was hard to believe in that it was a monumental waste of money amp16346 million had been spent out of the quoted amp163100 million budget when the Brexit delay occurred It featured awful creative and used media so badly it will probably be featured in a quothow not to do itquot case study taught to future media planning studentsLet39s go back to the beginningBrexit was supposed to happen on October 31 2019 note that date The government decided to run a campaign to advise UK citizens on how to prepare for Brexit At that stage there was no election planned and no suggestion that this was anything other than a public service announcement campaignBefore anything else a budget of amp163100 million was set aside and two lucky agencies were appointed to head the projectNo pitch as far as anyone can tell the agencies consisting of Engine fun fact Engine39s late president Robin Wight once stood as a Conservative Party candidate and the AmericanOmnicomowned OMG were unceremoniously appointedThe budget was widely seen as ridiculously high after all the campaign wasn39t likely to run for more than a couple of months three at most given that it launched at the beginning of SeptemberThen the campaign appeared You can judge for yourself but suffice it to say Campaign described it as quota communications abominationquot and promptly awarded it the coveted Turkey of the Week for bad advertisingFinally the media placements were shall we say questionable Campaign reported one such incident with the ad appearing in an article on the controversy around the Northern Ireland border issue you obviously can39t experience these online placements now The publication touched on this while suggesting quotplacements were so crassly absurd it39s hard not to think someone did it on purpose for the LOLsquotA thoughtful piece by the respected exagency professional now consultant Robert Ray on LinkedIn asked quotWhy would anyone amp8212 Brexit or otherwise amp8212 use a newspaper ad to simply attempt to direct someone to a website somewhere else to read whatever it is they want them to readquotI wonder if the obsession with online media and the use of addressable messaging via the likes of Facebook has driven planners to forget the basics of how offline media works Newspapers contain pages of words that dedicated readers can enjoy for these consumers longform copy can work brilliantly wellAnyway with all that money and the brains of two very competent agencies the campaign had to work right No apparently it didn39tThe National Audit Office found that quotAuditors said the numbers of people looking for information aboutamp160Brexitamp160did not notably change as a result amp8212 ranging from 32 percent and 37 percent during the campaign to 34 percent when it stopped having spent just under half of the allotted moneyquotThese atrocious results would never have happened or been tolerated had someone competent from the client been involved such as the dearlydeparted Central Office of InformationThe agencies involved are of course successful within the industry but even good agencies ultimately follow a client brief The client knows best or to paraphrase Michael Gove who needs expertsMind you maybe it did work and we39re looking in the wrong place A general election was called on October 31 that date again and took place on December 12 with Boris Johnson39s Brexitloving Conservatives winning a large majorityNot of course that the quotGet Ready for Brexitquot campaign was really a Conservative party election campaign hiding in plain sight Election campaigns are funded by the party government information campaigns by the taxpayerPerish the thoughtDon39t stop now Stay in the know with more from The Cog BlogClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

APPLY FOR JOBS | SUBMIT YOUR RESUME | REGISTER FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT

Advertising Done Badly: "Get Ready for Brexit" Campaign

Author

Publish date

Channel

Brian Jacobs

APPLY FOR JOBS | SUBMIT YOUR RESUME | REGISTER FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT

Advertising Done Badly: "Get Ready for Brexit" Campaign

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Brian Jacobs

Cookies