The good news is that the avalanche of taxpayer-funded domino ads about how smart the sa国际传媒 government is will come to an end soon.
The bad news is that there鈥檚 another phase starting up.
Opposition leader Adrian Dix opened the first question period in more than eight months on Wednesday by teeing off on the advertising push.
It鈥檚 an old issue, because the multi-million-dollar campaign has been running for ages.
But he had some new ammunition 鈥� a leak from the sa国际传媒 Liberal caucus in the form of a strategic outline of the advertising master plan. You can tell it鈥檚 a (formerly) secret document because it acknowledges something quite frankly 鈥� 鈥渢he campaign has helped decrease the credibility gap the government had.鈥�
The advertising wizards also congratulated themselves that the first phase of the blitz 鈥渉as helped decrease the knowledge gap around the government鈥檚 record.鈥�
It did that by hammering relentlessly on the theme that every government in the world is wrestling with horrible economic problems and only the sa国际传媒 government (that shiny white domino that never falls over) is holding steady.
There can鈥檛 be an adult media consumer in the province who hasn鈥檛 viewed the ad a hundred times by now. It鈥檚 probably driven more people to buy PVRs with skip functions than any other single factor.
Elsewhere, the outline advises the Liberal caucus: 鈥淎ll parts of the campaign work together and drive one another. No one ad works alone and no piece of creative operates outside a media-buying and targeting strategy.鈥�
That was definitely written by a salesperson who is reassuring a client halfway through a campaign that is worth millions.
According to the master plan, the idea is to 鈥渙vercome the knowledge gap and build pride and emotion for sa国际传媒鈥檚 economic record.鈥� That equals 鈥渃onfidence, pride, security, new investment and more jobs. Our plan is working.鈥�
Left unsaid, but patently obvious, is the working equation: Filled-in knowledge gap, plus pride and confidence, times a working plan equals a fourth sa国际传媒 Liberal term.
But they鈥檙e only part way through the equation, so there鈥檚 lots more money to be spent.
The post-budget push will involve an equally massive campaign that promotes 鈥渢he values behind [a]balanced budget鈥� and 鈥減romote specifics in the budget.鈥�
There was a time when post-budget advertising was confined to strictly factual information campaigns about how the budget affects taxpayers. But this is not that time.
So brace yourself to have the following theme drummed into your head: 鈥淥ur budget is important for household economics. It is what saves us all from economic risk. It is made for our future and all sa国际传媒 families. There are services important to British Columbians in the budget.鈥�
The document outlines $12.7 million spent on producing ads and buying air time, although that鈥檚 by no means the extent of the total budget.
According to the schedule, Premier Christy Clark鈥檚 government has dropped $7.1 million by now. It has another $2.1 million earmarked for one post-budget ad, $2 million for a second post-budget ad and $1.5 million for a skills ad to do with the importance of job training.
Dix and his lead critics spent most of question period on the topic. Clark defended the skills-training spots and bypassed the partisan nature of most of the campaign. Liberals braced for the attack by bringing up the ad budgets of the last New Democrat governments in the 1990s, which were well above the Liberal range.
Dix denied having any spending authority over those lavish outlays. But he was chief of staff to the premier for several of those campaigns, so he doesn鈥檛 come to the topic with completely clean hands.
The Opposition鈥檚 manufactured outrage was also undercut by one of their own MLAs, Fraser-Nicola鈥檚 Harry Lali, who was caught twice recently making partisan attacks funded by his constituency allowance, meaning they were paid for by taxpayers. Lali, with 14 years鈥� experience as an MLA, claimed it was a mistake.
Dix last month committed to outlawing partisan government-funded advertising, and giving the auditor general power to can any such ads.
But we鈥檙e still several million dollars and one election away from seeing if that would ever come to pass.
