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Museum of Liverpool defends "joke" advertising tender

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

February 11, 2011 | 3 min read

The £72m Museum of Liverpool is confident it will find an agency to handle its launch campaign despite the £10,000 budget on offer being ridiculed as "a joke" by a senior industry source.

Ahead of its opening in July, the museum has sent a tender document to 14 agencies explaining that it is seeking a "creative advertising campaign to support the launch of the new museum and marketing activity within the first 12 months".

The campaign is due to include print materials such as posters and leaflets, outdoor advertising, print advertising and web executions.

But the museum has been blasted for stipulating in the tender that the design, artwork and delivery "should not exceed £10,000 and would ideally be less".

One agency source, who asked not to be named, told The Drum: "Take £10k as a percentage of the build cost, or compare the identity cost with the campaign cost and it’s obvious why the the public sector is in such a mess.

"First rule of marketing whatever the sector – don’t blow your budget on capital costs leaving next to nothing to promote. In the private world this would be regarded as a joke."

Despite the criticism, the marketing chief responsible for the museum remains confident an agency will be appointed before this month is out.

Tracey McGeagh, director of marketing and communications at National Museums Liverpool, said in a statement: "As a government-funded museums service we routinely keep our costs as low as possible. The recent cuts mean we now have even tighter budgets than usual, and this affects everything, including the marketing campaign for the Museum of Liverpool.

"The creative fees are consistent with the rates we have paid for previous successful and high-profile campaigns, including the opening of the International Slavery Museum. I am well aware our budget for this project will rule out some agencies, but over the years we've worked with many designers who, like us, deal creatively with that challenge.

"So far, we have had some great feedback to the brief from companies very keen to work on this campaign, which is going to be very big news when the Museum opens in July."

This latest row over the value of advertising and design follows a string of recent tender controversies.

There was an outcry after Merseytravel ended its protracted tender process by appointing two agencies from a shortlist of 29.

And St Andrews University was criticised after appearing to appoint itself following a tender for print and design services.

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