www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/spinners-in-250000-pitch-for-the-task-of-explaining-broadband-plan/story-e6frg6nf-1225971755855
Mitchell Bingemann
The Australian
16 December 2010
THE government will spend more than $250,000 to hire a public relations firm to help promote its $36 billion National Broadband Network.
Last week the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy heard pitches from five firms — understood to include Hill & Knowlton, Ogilvy Public Relations, Weber Shandwick, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Royce — with a brief to demonstrate how they would “sell the NBN” to the public.
It is understood each firm was allowed only one delegate to deliver a 20-minute pitch.
It is expected the government will appoint one of the agencies soon.
A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the department ran the select tender using agencies listed on the commonwealth communications multi-use list.
The list was created by the Department of Finance and Deregulation as a whole-of-government roster to engage communications experts interested in working on government advertising and information campaigns.
The spokeswoman said the tender was not completed, so costs and details of the services were yet to be finalised. However, consultants are only selected from the roster when the expenditure for a campaign exceeds $250,000.
The successful tenderer will be contracted until June 30 next year.
They will be expected to conduct advertising, market research and public relations campaigns for the department.
“There is a real hunger for information in the community about what the NBN will mean for consumers, for small business and for health and education delivery,” Senator Conroy’s spokeswoman said. “The NBN will reach all Australians no matter where they live, so an effective communication strategy that can reach all individuals and all businesses is necessary.”
The successful firm will play a vital role in explaining the benefits of the taxpayer-funded NBN to a public still not fully aware of how the massive infrastructure project will affect them.
The government has struggled to sell the vision of its multi-billion-dollar project in Tasmania, where it was set up to test the design.
Only half of the households in the test towns of Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point have had the fibre network connected. This has translated to an overall service activation rate of 11 per cent.
Acceptance has been better on the mainland, where about 80 per cent of homes have connected, but there is no indication how many of these will purchase services once the network is switched on.
The Australian via Peter
