Bruce Cheadle/The Canadian Press
The Harper government is looking for a creative contractor to continue those feel-good “economic action plan” ads that have blanketed the airwaves for the past four years.
A new call for tenders says the winning advertising firm will spend up to the next three years handling ads on TV, radio, theatre screens and print and digital media. The ads are supposed “to inform Canadians about key initiatives, programs and benefits under Economic Action Plan 2013, which may include advertising Budget 2014,” says the statement from Public Works.
“The advertising will also serve to strengthen ongoing consumer confidence in the Canadian economy and the direction of the country.”
The winning firm is also required to “design, articulate, manage and implement the strategy for the EAP brand to ensure that it effectively relates and motivates the target audience.”
The initial contract runs until March 31, 2014, with two one-year options that would take the advertising to the end of March 2016. Under Canada’s fixed election date law, voters must go to the polls in 2015.
The “economic action plan” – first used to brand Ottawa’s big-spending 2009 stimulus budget during a global economic downturn – has been criticized almost from the get-go as a thinly veiled exercise in taxpayer-funded Conservative promotion.
The government has spent more than $100 million since 2009 promoting the “economic action plan” brand. EAP radio ads that are currently airing end with a disclaimer – “subject to parliamentary approval” – because the measures are not yet law.
