Institutional advertising is out of control in Spain with extra costs and favorable treatment

0
12

institutional money

The Public Administration has become one of the main advertisers in Spain above giants such as L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble, Samsung or even telecommunications operators. More of 250 million euros per month They have ended up in different media on many occasions without any control and with unreasonable cost overruns. As we will see below, some campaigns have been charged with prices ten times above the market value.

The Government, Autonomous Communities and Town Halls have become a communication machine that waters the online media without any supervision. According to the Federation of Advertising and Communication Companies (FEDE), the Public Administration tendered in 2022 advertising contracts worth 1,412 million euros with the Community of Madrid in the lead. In the case of CAM, the advertising campaigns that can be consulted on its transparency portal watered the media with hundreds of thousands of euros.

For example, OK Dailya newspaper led by Eduardo Inda, received a whopping 474,000 euros in 2021 between the Community chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the Madrid City Council led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida. In 2022 the figure will exceed half a million euros. In the case of El Mundo or El País, they received 377,000 euros followed by El Confidencial, which served advertising worth 200,000 euros.

ADSLZone has accessed the details of all the campaigns tendered and surprises how Wavemaker, the second media agency in the world in charge of planning campaigns for the Community of Madrid, approves media plans with prices that are absolutely out of the market. Thus, for example, the 300 x 600 format, which is the most widely used type of advertisement on the Internet, usually has an average price between 4 and 8 euros for every 1,000 hits it receives. In the case of the Community of Madrid, there are media outlets that have charged 30 euros for every 1,000 impressions, which is an unreasonable price that can only respond to partisan interest on the part of the Public Administration.

SEE ALSO  YouTube Create, Google's free video editor, arrives in Spain to compete with CapCut

In the picture you can see how for example The confidential charges 5,000 euros for serving alone 250,000 impressions. That means a CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) of 20 euros out of all logic. Eldiario.es directed by Ignacio Escolar is also another of the media that bleeds the CAM with a CPM of 18 euros, a totally unjustified price for the two formats it served.

It is also very striking how there are smaller media such as El Liberal, Merca2, Madriddiario or Madrid 365 that receive public money through the type of CF contract that means “Fixed Cost”. Basically, they place one type of ad without any control over the number of hits or the position where it appears. Basically it is like giving money to a media outlet without expecting anything in return beyond good editorial agreement.

In another of the campaigns tendered by the CAM related to transport, the same additional costs can be seen. While ElMundo.es charges 6,000 euros and launches 1.3 million impressions, which is a reasonable price, other smaller ones such as ElPlural.com receive 2,000 euros for serving just 10% of El Mundo’s impressions, that is, it charges a price of 18 euros CPM, also out of all logic.

According to sources in the sector, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Bajón is responsible for spreading public money from the people of Madrid to the media. It is evident that “public money belongs to no one” as Carmen Calvo said, but more control would be necessary since it comes from all the taxpayers’ taxes.

SEE ALSO  Breathe easy: Google Maps shows the air quality in Spain

* The ADSLZone Group has not received a single euro of institutional advertising from the Public Administrations in its 19-year history.