£294,000 wasted on media goons

[danrok]

From CTV Online:

THE States communication unit ? the body which advises the Chief Minister on how best to deal with the media ? is expected to cost £294,000 this year.

Senator Frank Walker revealed the cost in the States yesterday, prompting Senator Stuart Syvret to suggest that the unit should give the money back because of their ?catastrophic performance? during the Haut de la Gar-enne affair.

The Chief Minister said that in 2003, when States departments were individually employing private public relations firms, the States communications cost was in the region of £250,000 per year.

Source:
http://www.thisisjersey.com/news/shownewsarticle.pl?ArticleID=101372

[Jason the Maverick]

Sounds like they have been shafted.

[Chief Minister]

How come every time they report a bill it is sky high?

[danrok]

Their bills are nothing short of incredible. You would think that he was the UK Prime Minister, after running up a bill of this magnitude for something so trivial.

[Jason the Maverick]

It is a point, everytime they announce a bill its always through the roof.

[AHITS]

Their bills are nothing short of incredible. You would think that he was the UK Prime Minister, after running up a bill of this magnitude for something so trivial.

I fully agree, there is no justification whatsoever for that level of expenditure.

[moot]

From CTV Online:

THE States communication unit ? the body which advises the Chief Minister on how best to deal with the media ? is expected to cost £294,000 this year.

Senator Frank Walker revealed the cost in the States yesterday, prompting Senator Stuart Syvret to suggest that the unit should give the money back because of their ?catastrophic performance? during the Haut de la Gar-enne affair.

The Chief Minister said that in 2003, when States departments were individually employing private public relations firms, the States communications cost was in the region of £250,000 per year.

Source:
http://www.thisisjersey.com/news/shownewsarticle.pl?ArticleID=101372

[moot]

Frank Walker's communciation ( spin ) unit consist of 6 staff. Their leader earns £55000 pa and has no formal qualifications other than she worked with Frank at the JEP. This shows how much our chief relies on his cowboys to communicate with his indians
I'd say wait till August when Lennie Haper retires and ask him to do the job on his own until the elections and get rid of the unit. He'll probably do a better job. Once the elections are over the new chief can advertise for a qualified press spokesman

[Deputy Dawg]

Have a look at these two adverts for Jersey. First the new banana advert that tells about:-
Jersey Food
Quiet Country lanes
The Beach
The amount of sunshine
Expensive Shopping
Near to France 

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA5761&advertiser=Jersey

and the second was before the banana logo that tells of:-
Jersey Food
Quiet Country lanes
The Beach
The amount of sunshine
Near to home 

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA2214&advertiser=Jersey

Now wasn't that worth £250,000 to say you also have "cosmopolitan" shops.

[Deputy Dawg]

Doh! Look at me, linking in useless Media Goons with Useless brand designers...

Anyone know the name and address of the company that designed the life enriching brand? (after it was already designed for tampons, soap and other items:- See http://aholidayinthesun.blogspot.com/2007/12/return-of-banana.html)

[AHITS]

Anyone know the name and address of the company that designed the life enriching brand?

I believe it was this company....

http://corporateedge.com

Though the Jersey campaign doesn't appear in their portfolio....

http://corporateedge.com/who_we_work_for.html

If anyone's interested, the designs put forth by the local companies whom Frank Walker considered completely incapable of producing a high enough standard of work, can be found here....

http://www.creativejersey.com/section/2/index.html

[AHITS]

Have a look at these two adverts for Jersey. First the new banana advert that tells about:-
Jersey Food
Quiet Country lanes
The Beach
The amount of sunshine
Expensive Shopping
Near to France 

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA5761&advertiser=Jersey

and the second was before the banana logo that tells of:-
Jersey Food
Quiet Country lanes
The Beach
The amount of sunshine
Near to home 

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA2214&advertiser=Jersey

Now wasn't that worth £250,000 to say you also have "cosmopolitan" shops.

The blandness of those adverts overwhelms me. They are so incredibly uninspired and generic that they could  have been used to advertise any area along the South coast of England, just switch the logo and narrative.

For all the expense I expected to see an advert that reached out and grabbed the audience, offering them a wealth of reasons to jump out of their chair and book a holiday here.  Instead we get this bland, boring and insipid rubbish, which barely merits a glance up from the TV guide.

The golden touch of Frank Walker strikes again...

[Overandout]

Slightly off topic, but something that bugged me... for years Jersey Tourism had 'a London branch' which was a small office to the side of Buckingham Palace. I used to see it as I went past on National Express coaches on the way to Victoria coach station. This office was a good 5 minutes walk from the nearest tube/train station (Victoria), and it wasn't on the natural route anybody would take to from Victoria to the Palace.
Quite honestly, unless you knew it was there, you would not notice it, and I can only assume it was all but useless in attracting any passers-by (because there would have been precious few). But it must have cost a fortune to rent and to staff.
The Gibraltar Tourism Office, on the otherhand, is massive and occupies a very prominent position on the Strand, just a hundred metres or so from London's biggest theatres.
(Jersey Tourism has now moved and is part of the Britain and London visitor centre.)

[danrok]

There was nothing wrong with the old "J" logo. They could have simply tweaked that and updated it.

Coke-a-cola, for example, have used much the same logo all along, but it has been tweaked and modernised many times.

As I remember, most of the logos submitted by local firms were pretty poor, and would not even conform to standard requirements for use in a wide variety of media. Most modern logos are very simple in appearance, just because they need to be very adaptable.