Is Boris right?

by: BR team - 09-05-2008 15:56

Newly installed London mayor Boris Johnson is set to slash the advertsing budget at City Hall. Jobs in the marketing and press departments are also under threat. The move marks one of Johnson's first measures since becoming Mayor.

Compared to the enormous amounts of money the government spends on consultancy fees, the advertising budget is actually quite small by comparison. Johnson says he needs the money the cuts will save to pay for extra police.

Has City Hall's advertising expenditure become too big? On the other hand, Johnson is set to launch a raft of measures that may prove unpopular with Londoners without advertising to galvanise support for his new ideas. With this in mind, should Johnson actually leave the budget as it is or even increase spend?

RE: Is Boris right? - 12-05-2008 12:14

by: Calum Chace

Dead Ken may have wasted even more on consultants than on advertising, but stopping the gusher that pays for the ego-maniac propaganda machine has to be a Good Thing.  Will anyone miss The Londoner, for instance, apart from the journos it employed (who will hopefully go on to do far far better things).

RE: Is Boris right? - 12-05-2008 14:14

by: johnny rambleton

Ken's problem is that he didn't spend enough on advertising.  Crime is down, buses are up...he gets very little credit for his achievements and lost the election because people didn't know about this stuff.  Take knife crime and the claim that we have a generation of teenagers running wild with switchblades; if there'd been a campaign recently that publicised the sentences the perpetrators have received, middle class voters would have been reassured and future knife wielding youth made to think twice.

 But no-one will miss the Londoner or those terrible 'we are London' lamppost hoardings he ran a couple of years ago.  Can't deny that...

RE: Is Boris right? - 13-05-2008 16:01

by: Michael Byrne

Johnny Rambleton: "if there'd been a campaign recently that publicised the sentences the perpetrators have received, middle class voters would have been reassured and future knife wielding youth made to think twice."

There was, in fact there's been a few. Kids don't stop carrying knives because an ad tells them they'll banged up for it or get killed. Plus, there's a credit crunch happening and the beginnings of an economic downturn, the last thing people want to see is their hard-earned tax money spent on advertising, when they'd prefer to have that cash themselves. Ken spent a lot of money on advertising, most of it advertising himself with his Mayor of London logo on everything... except, funnily enough, theTransport for London-backed St Georges Day festival. And good riddance to Pravda, sorry The Londoner. Too much money was frittered away on Ken's ego-boosting rag.