The $4 million reportedly set aside for an intense 10-day ad blitz to promote the March 22 federal budget represents about two to three weeks worth of election campaign advertising for the three main parties, according to their 2008 election campaign returns.But the real problem is that the cost of ad spending involved in the Cons utterly saturating Canada's airwaves shouldn't be news at all given that it's pretty much par for the course under the Harper regime.
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The expected buy comes in the wake of a very heavy government ad buy to promote Canada's "Economic Action Plan" and a number of other government initiatives in child health, product safety, and immigration; along with a series of pre-election ad volleys by all four english-language political parties in recent weeks and days.
At this rate, Canadians will be wanting an election just to see the volume of advertising reduced!
As Alice notes, the budget blitz of $400,000 per day makes for more spending than we'd normally see from the Cons during the course of an election campaign (roughly $300,000 per day). But compared to the Cons' usual government advertising expenses outside an election period over the past couple of years, the number doesn't particularly stand out.
In fact, in 2009 (the last year for which full numbers are available), the Cons spent $130 million on advertising - an average of over $350,000 per day for the entire year. And there's little reason to think they've reined in their propensity for self-promotion (on your dime of course) in the meantime.
So all indications are that a campaign wouldn't just mean a reduction in Con-friendly advertising compared to this month's budget blitz. In fact, for the last two-plus years the Cons have spent public money on advertising at a level consistent with campaign saturation - meaning that the main difference in a campaign figures to be that for once, the Cons' message will be matched ad for ad by the other parties.
[Edit: fixed link.]
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