Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.
I'd like to begin by giving you some context and background related to the advertising campaigns that have recently been run by my department.
Our government launched Canada's Economic Action Plan on January 23, 2009 to support Canadians through a world-wide economic crisis with a comprehensive series of measures and initiatives.
Mr. Chair, equally important as making these investments is making sure that Canadians are aware of them so that they can benefit. These ads play an important role in not only informing Canadians that benefits and programs exist, but they also inform Canadians where they can go to find more information, whether it is the website, the phone number or their local government office.
Canadians needed to be aware of and know how to access the investments the government is making. Accordingly, it was necessary to launch advertising campaigns to ensure that Canadian workers were aware of and were taking advantage of the various benefits and programs available to them. The advertising campaign highlighted several new and enhanced initiatives to support Canadian workers and their families during the global economic downturn.
Two advertising campaigns were conducted, one for apprentices and one for workers in general. The first program, the apprenticeship grants campaign, was developed to raise awareness of the $4,000 in grants available from the Government of Canada to encourage apprentices to undertake and complete their apprenticeships and become journeypersons in a skilled trade.
Research has shown that a significant number of apprentices do not complete their training. The $2,000 apprenticeship incentive grant is available to first- and second-year apprentices in specified trades and has been provided to over 140,000 Canadians since its launch in 2007. The apprenticeship completion grant, announced as part of Canada's economic action plan, provides an additional $2,000 to apprentices who complete their training and become journeypersons. In its first year alone it helped almost 20,000 Canadians.
This campaign targeted apprentices through radio and Internet advertising, as well as through ads placed in schools and in restaurants located near training centres. This campaign was launched on January 11, 2010, and was completed on March 7, 2010. The campaign was evaluated with the standard advertising campaign evaluation tool, otherwise known as ACET, which is a survey of the general population that collects information related to recall of the advertisement, recall of the key messages, and recall of who sponsored the ad, as well as to determine what, if any, action has been taken as a result of seeing the ad. ACET indicates that 37% of the target audience recalled seeing the ad, with fully one in five indicating that they were going to take action as a result of seeing the ad.
A budget of about $200,000 was established for planning and production. A media budget of approximately $1,650,000 was established for the campaign.
The Helping Canadian Workers campaign was designed to raise awareness of programs available to workers who had been adversely affected by the global economic downturn. The campaign was comprised of a national television and Internet component that included broad messaging about the support available to Canadian workers and where Canadians could go to get more information. The national element was supported by regional print and radio ads that carried more detailed information about specific programs related to skills and training, extended EI benefits and new EI benefits for the self-employed.
Examples of these include the extra five weeks of EI benefits provided, which have helped some 600,000 Canadians who are unemployed so far; our record investment in skills training and upgrading, which are helping Canadians get back to work and get ready for the jobs of tomorrow; as well as the expanded work-sharing program, which so far has protected the jobs of over 255,000 Canadians since February 2009.
The budget for production and campaign planning was about $1,225,000. The national television and Internet campaign was launched January 18 and concluded February 28. The national media buy included air time during the Olympics. The media budget for the national component of the campaign was approximately $4,950,000. The regional campaign was launched on February 8, 2010, and concluded on March 31, and included radio ads, print ads, and Internet ads in both official languages. The media budget for the regional component of the campaign was about $5,575,000.
Using the advertising campaign evaluation tool that I referred to earlier, the aided and unaided recall rate of the campaign among the general population was a whopping 61%, compared to the average Government of Canada benchmark of 36%. This figure rises to 65% among unemployed workers. Overall awareness of the economic action plan was 66% in March, compared to 57% in January.
The main message in these ads was that government help was available to the unemployed who have paid into government programs like EI. Clearly, Mr. Chair, these ads were a success.
All information concerning our advertising campaigns, including contracts, costs and evaluation, are made public once all final information is collected and available. Furthermore, the government publishes an annual report on all its advertising expenditures.
Mr. Chair, I'm aware a newspaper article based on an inquiry of the costs of these advertising campaigns came to the attention of my staff. Canadians want timely and accurate information regarding the expenditure of their taxpayer dollars. Given the fluid nature of ad buys, it's prudent to wait until an ad campaign is over and actual ad time has been finalized before releasing the costs. That's exactly what was done in this case. The information was released after the advertising campaign ended and more accurate information was available on actual airtime and costs.
I'd also like to point out that my office followed all the rules under the guidelines of the Government of Canada's communication policy. Under the policy, and I quote:
Institutions must consult their minister's office when planning media campaigns or strategies that could involve ministerial participation, or when preparing a response to a media enquiry that could have implications for the minister.
And I quote:
Ministers are the principal spokespersons for the Government of Canada. They are supported in this role by appointed aides, including executive assistants, communications directors and press secretaries in ministers' offices.
Our government was forthcoming in providing more accurate costs in a timely manner once the campaign was complete and final airtime was known.
Mr. Chair, as the objective assessment has indicated, this advertising campaign was very successful in raising awareness among Canadian workers of the programs our government is delivering to them in these tough economic times.
I would now be pleased to answer your questions.
