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2003 November Report of the Auditor General of Canada

November 2003 Report—Chapter 4

Case Study 4.4—Three advertising campaigns managed by three departments

Human Resources and Development Canada

Canada Education Savings Grants 2001-02 Campaign, "First Steps"

The Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) is a grant from the Government of Canada paid directly into a beneficiary's Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). It was introduced in January 1998 to give Canadians an added incentive to save for their children's future education. The objective of the campaign was "to increase awareness of CESG especially among parents, increase call-to-action in order to raise the number and value of applications and ensure the visibility of the GoC as sponsor of the program." The grant program's main challenge was to attract more contributions from households with annual income of less than $60,000.

We audited the fourth year of this five-year campaign, which cost $3.8 million in 2001-02. The advertising was tied to one of the key priorities in the 2001 Speech from the Throne, Skills and Learning.

Overall, the 2001-02 advertising campaign for the Canada Education Savings Grant was a good example of commonly used practices in communications management, from inception to completion. The creative briefing to the agency was sound and based on a strategic plan prepared by HRDC in conjunction with the agency. It included an environmental analysis, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), and a marketing plan with clear business objectives. Strengths of the campaign include the use of solid research at each step of the process. We saw a good integration of the Department's resources and its expertise in the management of public opinion research.

Files were well documented and showed the use of a disciplined and rigorous process. The development of the campaign was based on lessons learned from previous campaigns. The media plan was comprehensive and included marketing and media objectives and a summary of the targeted group's media habits. However, the objectives were stated in broad terms and could have been better quantified with specific targets measuring ad awareness, reach, and frequency in the targeted audience.

The campaign was evaluated at each stage, including testing of the concept before production. The evaluation of the campaign's effectiveness was conducted through a telephone survey of 2,000 Canadians. Of those surveyed, 39 percent claimed to have seen the commercial for the CESG; 71 percent of that group recalled the ad's main message. There was also a high recognition of the Government of Canada as the main sponsor of the ad. However, as no benchmark targets were set for the campaign, it is not clear whether the achievements described in the post-test results met the expectations for the campaign's performance.

Canada Information Office

Television vignettes 2001-02, Citizen Information Initiative

This 2001-02 television vignettes series was a sequence of three 60-second ads designed to promote government services. The full series was launched in 2000 under the Canada Information Office as part of the Citizen Information Initiative, a three-year initiative with a yearly budget of $19 million.

While broad objectives had been established for the Citizen Information Initiative ("to outline the Government of Canada's priorities and publicize government programs and services, to promote the Government's agenda by increasing awareness of the Government's services and promoting the three access channels; to inform Canadians of services offered by the Government of Canada"), no measurable objectives were established specifically for the vignettes series that our audit covered.

The vignette series was characterized by an exclusive agreement with two television broadcasters, TVA and Global.

Exclusive agreement with two television networks. The 2001-02 television vignette series differed from a normal advertising campaign. It was carried out in exclusive partnership with two private broadcasters, Groupe TVA inc. and Global Television. Communication Canada could not provide us with a signed agreement on its exclusive broadcasting arrangement with TVA and Global.

Communication Canada told us that under the arrangement, the Canada Information Office had received a $2.00 value for each dollar it invested with TVA and a $1.50 value for each dollar invested with Global. However, it could not provide any evidence on how these rates related to normal bulk discounting. Officials told us there had been no attempts to compare the rates with those that could have been obtained from other networks.

The exclusive agreement with TVA and Global included the requirement that the communications agency (Allard-Johnson) would use a specific company (JPL, a production agency related to TVA) to do the production work. This prevented the agency (Allard-Johnson) from competitively tendering this work as required by the contract. The work subcontracted to JPL without competitive bids totalled about $838,000. The decision to enter into this exclusive arrangement was not supported by any written analysis. It was impossible for us to determine why this agreement was entered into, or what benefits were received.

We found solid evidence of a careful approach to production management. Detailed production files showed meetings between the communications agency, the production house (JPL), the Canada Information Office, and the partnering departments to reach agreement on talent choices, schedules, and shooting plans for the vignettes.

However, Communication Canada could not produce any written record of having briefed the agency on any of the three vignette campaigns to describe, among other things, the specific objectives, key messages, and target audience and to give the agency clear direction on producing the concept. Officials told us they had briefed the agency through numerous meetings and telephone conferences.

We note that the Canada Information Office had not established specific objectives for each of the three vignettes in order to measure their contribution to the overall campaign. However, it carried out evaluations that showed that the vignettes series had a degree of success in meeting the objectives of the overall campaign.

Health Canada

"Light and mild" campaign of the Anti-Tobacco Initiative, 2001-02

The "light and mild" campaign, with an estimated total cost of $9.2 million, was developed after the Minister of Health challenged the tobacco industry in May 2001 to remove the "light and mild" labels from cigarette packages within the next 100 days.

The stated objectives of the first phase of the campaign were "to set stage (provide framing) for the Minister's announcement of the next steps to addressing the light and mild descriptors issues." The television campaign objective was to "bolster public support for continued federal action to address light and mild descriptors issues." The secondary objectives were to "raise awareness of the confusion caused by light and mild descriptors; raise awareness that light and mild cigarettes can deliver the same toxics in similar concentrations as regular cigarettes with the same possible results."

The "light and mild" campaign clearly was related to a key priority of both Health Canada and the federal government. We saw evidence that the development of the ad campaign followed a rational and logical approach from concept to final copy, supported by research at each stage. However, the objectives were vague and not measurable. The media plan and budget called for an average of 22 viewings by 95 percent of Canadian adults 18 and over and spending of $6.7 million over seven weeks. We saw little documented rationale or analysis to support the proposed level of saturation or the level of spending.

No one at Health Canada could tell us how the global budget for the campaign was established in the first place. Health Canada submitted no advertising plan and spending forecast to CCSB, as the government's communications policy required.