Council spends more on tram ads than Covid
● Almost £16k channelled into social media over line extension
Social media giants received almost £16,000 in cash from Edinburgh City Council in connection with advertising spending to publicise the tram extension to Newhaven since the beginning of 2018.
The figure is more than double the amount spent by the council on all communications in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw just £900 spent on social media advertising.
In total, the council spent just over £7,600 on Covid-19 ads since March this year, including £3,000 on a radio advert for the changes to bin services and another £3,300 on physical communications about service disruption.
However, in January alone the council spent £3,415 on Facebook adverts for the tram extension, with advertising for the trams halted in March following the onset of the pandemic. The tram project has since restarted digital advertising.
When including all promotional material spending on the trams, including letters to residents, posters and leaflets, the council has spent £64,000 on communications for the public transport project.
Opposition politicians said the revelation brought into question the council’s priorities. Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Councillor Kevin Lang said it was time for the council to rethink its communications strategy.
He said: “Many residents will look at these figures and question whether the council has got its priorities right. It underlines a need to rethink the council’s whole communications strategy.”
Conservative transport spokesperson Councillor Sue Webber, said businesses would “bite your hand off ” for a marketing budget as large as the trams, and added:
“If the trams are as welcome and loved in the city as the administration continue to profess, then this level of advertising spend would not be needed.” Council Leader Adam Mcvey said: “Teams across the council have worked extremely hard during the Covid outbreak to ensure services have been delivered as close to normally as possible. This has, of course, included the communication of service changes, certain restrictions in place and other local information.
“Separately from this, over the last two years we have carried out considerable work to engage with the public on the Trams to Newhaven scheme.
“To compare the two, over different time periods, is extremely misleading and doesn’t take into account a number of factors. These include free billboard advertising offered for Covid-related messaging by Jcdecaux, which would be of significant value.”