Dear Mrs. K Hamilton,

 

Thank you for your request of 12 May 2020 asking for information on
government advertising and public relations spending.

 

I am able to provide you with a response addressing information relating
solely to the Treasury. The Treasury does not hold information on the
advertising and public relations expenditure of other government agencies.
I encourage you to contact the agencies you list below directly as they
are best placed to respond to your request.

 

Regarding your request for information relating to the Treasury I have
decided to extend the time limit for deciding on your request by an
additional 20 working days. The due date for responding to your request
will be Wednesday 8 July 2020. As you will understand, the Treasury, along
with a number of government agencies, is currently directing resources
towards its response to COVID-19. This will mean the consultations
required to make a decision on your request are likely to take longer than
usual.

 

In addition, some of the information you have requested in your first two
questions (on Treasury spending) can be found on the Treasury website via
the following link:
[1]https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/oi....
This information covers the spending on advertising for the past five
years ending August 2019.

 

Kind regards,

Adam

 

Adam Antao | Ministerial Advisor | Te Tai Ôhanga – The Treasury

Email/IM: [2][email address]

 [IN-CONFIDENCE]

 

Link: [3]File-List
Link: [4]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [5]themeData
Link: [6]colorSchemeMapping

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Dear K Hamilton

 

Thank you for your Official Information Act request, received on 12 May
2020.  You requested:

 

Can you please provide monthly figures in a spreadsheet for the past
financial years on:

 

 1. Your total advertising spend, including online advertising and media
relations spend.
 2. Please include the proportion of your online advertising spend that
goes on: Facebook, You Tube, Instagram, specific “influencers”, SEO,
online news sites, other sites.
 3. Please indicate the names of external consultants both nationally and
internationally that were engaged including overall fees paid.
 4. Please indicate if this spend was general, or on specific campaigns.

 

 5. Please also indicate in writing, and attach relevant documents, if
your agency implemented a policy change on online spending from 31
December, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) is told about the
initial COVID cases.
 6. Please outline a separate COVID specific budget that was spent from 31
December 19 till 11 March 20, when the WHO declared an official
pandemic. Please also provide a secondary overall budget of spending
from 31 December till today 12 May 20, including the above requests
regarding platforms used, external consultants engaged and department
involved.
 7. For your most recent COVID campaign, where possible, please provide
success measures or reports ie. click through or engagement data or
briefings with this information contained.

 

 8. Please include the below departments in your figures:

Ministry for Culture and Heritage
Ministry of Defence
Ministry for Pacific Peoples
Ministry for Primary Industries*
Ministry for the Environment
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Ministry of Health*
Ministry of Housing and Urban Development
Ministry for Transport
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service
New Zealand Transport Agency
Oranga Tamariki
Serious Fraud Office
Statistics New Zealand
Tourism New Zealand

 

Regarding your questions on online advertising spending, the Treasury does
not run advertising campaigns, including on any online platforms, with the
exception of recruitment advertising. Therefore the Treasury has not hired
external consultants for this purpose.

 

Similarly, in regard to your questions on online spending as a result of
COVID-19, the Treasury has run no campaigns on COVID-19 and has made no
policy changes in regard to COVID-19 advertising.

 

Additionally, as stated in our reply on 8 June 2020, the Treasury does not
hold information on the advertising and public relations expenditure of
other government agencies. Therefore, I am refusing your request under
18(e) – the document alleged to contain the information requested does not
exist or cannot be found.

 

Information publicly available

 

The following information is covered by your request and is publicly
available on the Treasury website:

 

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Item |Date |Document |Website Address |
| | |Description| |
|-----+------+-----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1.  |14 |Total |[1]https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/oi...
| |March |Amount of | |
| |2019 |Spending on| |
| | |Advertising| |
| | |in the Past| |
| | |Five | |
| | |Financial | |
| | |Years | |
|-----+------+-----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 2.  |29 |Advertising|[2]https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/oi... |
| |August|Spend for | |
| |2019 |Past Five | |
| | |Years | |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Accordingly, I have refused your request for the documents listed in the
above table under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act – the
information requested is or will soon be publicly available.

 

This reply addresses the information you requested. You have the right to
ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review my decision.

 

Please note that this letter (with your personal details removed) and
enclosed documents may be published on the Treasury website.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Adam Antao | Ministerial Advisor | Te Tai Ôhanga – The Treasury

Email/IM: [3][email address]

 [IN-CONFIDENCE]

 

Link: [4]File-List
Link: [5]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [6]themeData
Link: [7]colorSchemeMapping

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