Interesting piece in the Orange County Register about the marketing costs for the 2010 census. The bottom line, as you will see, is that the Census Bureau used "swag" or promotional items to motivate people to send in their census form, rather than the more expensive approach of having a census taker come to their door. Much of the Register's piece, which appeared online on April 14, follows:
We at The Watchdog were fuming last week when we inquired about the cost of the U.S. Census coffee mugs, notebooks, lunch packs, etc. that were being given away in an effort to encourage people to return their Census forms. We hit a stone wall: The total spent on advertising and field work was close to $1 billion, but “I do not have a cost breakdown per item or for specific spending on promotional items,” Samantha O’Neil, of the Census Bureau Public Information Office, told us. ”We cannot provide detailed pricing information on promotion item costs because the information constitutes a trade secret of our main contractor — DRAFT FCB.”
As we fitfully prepared to file our Freedom of Information Act Request, we got a phone call from a good-humored man named Stephen L. Buckner (who has the awesome title of “Assistant Division Chief, Decennial Programs Public Information Office U.S. Census Bureau”). Buckner begged our pardon and proceeded to answer our questions, at least generally:
- The U.S. Census Bureau’s contract with advertising giant DRAFT FCB was for $340 million – or about $1 per person.
- Out of that, $140 million went to TV, print, bus and Internet ads,
- and $16.3 million was spent on promotional items, or "swag."
- The swag spending averages out to about five cents per person in the U.S., with an average cost of 25 cents per item.
- There were a staggering 65.2 million promotional items given away – mugs, T-shirts, water bottles, pencils, printed materials, etc. (If you didn’t get one, you probably know someone who did.)
- An additional $6.4 million was spent on promotional stuff in the Census’s separate “March to the Mailbox” campaign, bringing total swag spending to… drumroll please… $22.7 million.
The point of all this spending?
To increase awareness of the Census, and to get people to mail back their forms.
“It’s a lot less expensive to get a form back in the mail - 42 cents – versus the $60 it costs to send someone out to your house,” Buckner said. “For every percentage point (of the population that returns the forms – now about 67 percent), we stand to save taxpayers $85 million.”