Departmental Marketing

David Simpson
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the cost effectiveness of Government-commissioned advertising in the last 12 months relating to matters falling within the remit of his Department.

Jonathan Shaw
Government policies and programmes affect the lives of millions of people and in order for them to work they must be communicated effectively. The Department runs communications campaigns to support the delivery of its key policies to the appropriate audiences, and advertising is used where appropriate.

The effectiveness of advertising, as with all communications activity, is rigorously assessed according to the individual criteria and objectives set out for each initiative, and results are used to measure effectiveness and to inform future strategy. Methods include quantitative surveys carried out before, during and after advertising campaigns, qualitative assessment of creative work, and in-depth work with samples of those targeted by advertising. The Department is committed to setting robust evaluation metrics for all of its communications activity.