How Much Kenya Government Spends on Image Building (and who gets it)

State corporations and the central government have over the past few months embarked on ambitious communications campaigns as they seek to create awareness on reforms taking place in the public sector especially touching on health care, education, financial management and the Constitution.

Expenditure on Advertising

For this reason, the total expenditure on advertising by government and state corporations has grown to 9 per cent of the total ad spend market for the nine months to September 2011.  In full year 2009, the government’s ad spend accounted for 6 per cent of the total spend and 10 per cent in 2010.

Ogilvy, a subsidiary of WPP owned Scangroup, has secured three State corporation contracts between April and June this year with a total value of $1.54 million.

Ogilvy Contracts

Ogilvy’s contracts included consultancy services for integrated marketing communication for National Hospital Insurance Fund ($0.53 million), consultancy services for Brand Kenya ($1 million), and communication agency work for the Kenyatta International Conference Centre ($0.01 million).

Over the last decade, Ogilvy has  won huge accounts such as the Vision 2030 (which it won in a consortium with McKinsey & Co), Kenya Airports Authority, it also devised the successful campaign for Kenya Revenue Authority and handled advertising for President Mwai Kibaki’s re-election campaign under PNU.

Ogilvy has also benefited from public health communication as the government and donors spent billions of dollars in an effort to fight the spread of HIV/Aids and prevent spread of malaria and tuberculosis.

And multinational advertising agencies are expected to make a kill next year as it is expected that the market for both public sector and political communications will be huge in readiness for the general elections.

Multinationals and Government Supplies

Ogilvy and Mather East Africa edged out rivals to pocket several lucrative government tenders over the past six months, establishing the firm as one of the biggest suppliers of communications services to the government.

Communications director Brand Kenya Musyoki Kivindyo, said that the Brand Kenya initiative was looking into developing the country’s brand in order to attract foreign direct investment, tourism and promote export products (such as coffee, tea and flowers), as other African counties such as South Africa and Mauritius also step up their branding campaigns.

Overall, advertising spend in Kenya  increased by 56 per cent to $126.3 million in the first quarter of 2011 from $81.05 million recorded in the same period the previous year, highlighting increasing confidence in the Kenyan economy by businesses.

Big players in the government contracts include Scangroup and Young and Rubicam, Havas Media Kenya and Square Gold PR& Marketing and Brand Associates – all of them foreign-owned.