Finance Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

It's an honour to have you here.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I'm talking about funding related to government advertising programs. Among the horizontal items, including supplementary estimates—you have both supplementary (A)s and (B)s here—what you see is $16 million allotted to the Department of Finance. This would be for the economic action plan ads, I'm assuming. There's a little bit here and there in the supplementary (B)s—you have Heritage, obviously because of the 1812 celebrations.

But there were reports done for Finance in both 2011 and 2012. On July 18, 2011, Harris/Decima completed a reported for Finance Canada on the effectiveness of the advertising, and 84% of Canadians had not heard about the next phase of Canada's economic action plan. Of the 13% of Canadians who had heard of it, 61% couldn't or wouldn't recall a single part of that plan. The total expenditure was $16 million.

Ipsos Reid has said that this year alone more than two-thirds of Canadians never saw any advertising for Canada's economic action plan. Of those who could remember the ads, 23% could remember the phrase, “economic action plan”. That's a lot of money for brand awareness that doesn't seem to lead to people being too aware of the term “economic action plan” itself, which apparently is at the forefront of what this plan is all about.

The evidence shows that in 2011 and 2012 the numbers are the same for penetration and brand awareness, but the budget went from $8.7 million to $16 million. Something doesn't seem to be right. It's not really working. When you look at this, and you realize that from last year.... That's a big sum. Most of it has gone to Finance for the economic action plan—is that correct?

[Sherry Harrison]

We have received $16 million in the current fiscal year for EAP advertising. That's correct.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Yes. And obviously the supplementary (B)s would just talk about things.... Well, what does “Natural Resources” pertain to?

[Sherry Harrison]

I can't speak for the other departments that are listed for advertising. I can only speak on behalf of Finance.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Are you prepared to comment and let us...? Do you believe this advertising is effective in any way? How do you gauge effectiveness? Is that why we did the report, based on what Ipsos and the polling firms had to say?

[Sherry Harrison]

Mr. Chair, could I have my colleague Mr. Catta come to the table to speak to advertising?

[Jean-Michel Catta, Assistant Deputy Minister, Consultations and Communications Branch, Department of Finance]

As part of our advertising campaigns, we're both required to focus test the ads before they appear and also mandated to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign afterwards.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Evaluate with whom?

[Jean-Michel Catta]

It's like a general survey of the general population, which in essence measures—a little bit to your point—either the awareness or the effectiveness of the campaign.

In terms of the pre-campaign testing, something we hear on a very consistent basis is that participants in these evaluations want to hear about the government's plan. Of course, it's related to the economic situation as we know it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We have one minute.

[Jean-Michel Catta]

It's fragile—there is lots of uncertainty in the U.S. and Europe and so forth. People are asking, in the testing we do—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Do you have a precise comment about Harris/Decima? In 2011, it said that this is not working. In 2012, Ipsos Reid said much the same.

Is the answer to throw money at it?

[Jean-Michel Catta]

In the post-campaign research that we've done, we have what's called a recall rate, which is people recalling seeing the ad, and the recall rate is 53%, which is slightly higher than the average of 49%.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Who said 53%? Who does that?

[Jean-Michel Catta]

It's part of the research we do. It's like polling.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

But the polling I have here says it's nowhere near 53%.

[Jean-Michel Catta]

Well, that's one poll.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

But you paid for this report too.

[Jean-Michel Catta]

I can't speak about these numbers, but in terms of the polling that we do—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

You cannot speak about these numbers?

[Jean-Michel Catta]

No, I'm not aware of the specifics of this particular poll. What I can speak about is the polling that Finance has done as part of its advertising campaign.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

The polls that I just mentioned are the polls you paid for, the ones with very low recall rates.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Make a brief response.

[Jean-Michel Catta]

What I mean here is that generally speaking our recall rates for the advertising campaigns at Finance have been slightly higher than the average of other government campaigns.