Does the COI expect to be congratulated for ‘increasing its turnover' by nearly 16%, while most UK companies are cutting costs, staff and issuing profit warnings in the face of declining spend?
According to the COI's annual report, the Government department increased its ad spend by £21m - or 15% - to £157m while spend on every other area, including research, PR, sponsorship and events also enjoyed double-digit percentages hike in spend as the COI's ‘clients' gave it more cash to squander. The only area where the COI sought to cut back was in publications, down 2.3%, although this still accounted for over £30m of public funds.
If this was a revenue-generating British company it would be a tremendous success story. But it's not, and as economic times get tougher the more it sticks in the craw.
But there are clear savings to be made that will help the hard-pushed taxpayer - why a large part of the COI's spend TV and radio (which was up 29% to nearly £18m) can be scrapped immediately and the BBC made to run the ads instead of paying for them to go on commercial media. The BBC is keen to accentuate its public-service roots in order to protect its monopoly on the licence fee while the COI will also find the reach of its campaigns will increase while members of the public will hardly notice the change given the number of promos it already runs, as well as being better off. Everybody wins.
