THE local advertising industry has its sights set on the State Government as the major agencies head for the trenches in readiness for a string of major account pitches.
In the next few months, local agencies will prepare submissions for the Office of Road Safety, the WA Tourism Commission and the WA Electoral Commission.
Both the WATC and ORS are multi-million dollar accounts that provide rare creative opportunities in WA’s strong, retail-based marketing industry.
303, which currently has the account, has recently completed a $1 million cam-paign featuring the positioning line Be Touched By Nature.
The campaign was funded in part by the Government’s $5 million in-crisis funding for the tourism industry following the events of September 11.
Western Australian Tourism Com-mission acting chief executive officer Grant Goodall claims the feedback from tourism operators has been positive.
Some tourism operators have reported receiving more than 100 calls a day in response to the campaign.
“The new advertising direction focuses on the trend of the modern traveller to use the Internet and emails to communicate with family and friends, as well as capitalising on the growing popularity of reality TV,” Mr Goodall said.
The $3 million account will be hotly contested by the major players, however The Brand Agency won’t be in the running after announcing its intention not to take on any new business until at least July this year.
The WA electoral account is also up for review and, although this is a smaller account, it has provided JDA with some interesting creative opportunities.
WA Electoral Commissioner Ken Evans said the advertising contract had come to an end and the WA Electoral Commission has re-advertised the contract.
It’s understood the tender will include the new electoral distribution of the State and the local government elections in May 2003.
“There’s a lot of statutory things that are happening and the commission is required to publish the results of the distribution for public comment,” Mr Evans said.
“Our media campaign is a bit different to someone like BankWest in that it’s more about finding innovative ways to get information out into the public.”
