Scottish Government television advertising budgets: FOI release

Information requested

1. In the period between April 1st 2019 and March 2020 how much did the Scottish Government pay for all TV advertising and related media buying and planning services for all Government departments.
2. In the period from April 1st 2020 to present, how much had the Scottish Government set aside and paid including work on progress for TV advertising related to Covid-19. For the avoidance of doubt figures provided should include all creative, production, planning and media buying through agencies and external suppliers.
3. How much of this budget is over and above normal forecast TV advertising budgets set out on 2018-19 ,19-20.
4. How much of the Scottish TV advertising budget is allocated to Union Advertising, Leith Advertising, Carat and Mediacom.

Response

Question 1 & 2
The spend across the time period is as follows:

	2018/2019	2019/2020	2020/2021 (ytd)
Creative Fees*	£311,234	£420,601	£1,221,707
Production	£549,442	£898,559	£1,171,010
TV Advertising Media	£720,435	£1,068,863	£5,989,631
Total	£1,581,111	£2,388,023	£8,382,348

* As the creative for a campaign is developed to work across a number of media channels it is not possible to separate out the creative fees specifically relating to TV. Therefore, this figure is the total spend per year on creative fees for campaigns which used broadcast TV to as part of the media activity. Fees will also cover the development of radio, press, outdoor, partnerships and stakeholder engagement.

Question 3
The Scottish Government does not operate an annual budget for TV advertising. A marketing budget is set each year based on the estimated cost for delivering each campaign that the Scottish Government is undertaking. The allocation of campaign budget to TV advertising is dependent on the needs of each campaign. Therefore, it is not possible to provide the figure requested.

Question 4
The spend on creative fees, production and TV advertising media for the four listed agencies are as follows:

	2018/2019	2019/2020	2020/2021 (ytd)
The Leith Agency	£627,511	£1,069,292	£2,203,823
The Union	£88,165	£88,165	£188,894
Carat	£720,435	£391,321	£0
Mediacom	£0	£0	£0

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