Live ad is 'waste of money'

The $25,000 advert being performed at Wellington's Downstage Theatre. Photo / Supplied

A taxpayer-funded road safety advertisement played out by a theatre company has been labelled a waste of money.

The New Zealand Transport Agency paid Wellington's Downstage Theatre $25,000 to perform an ad before its play, December Brother.

NZTA spokesman Andy Knackstedt said the live ad was a new initiative to "raise awareness of driver fatigue and encourage behaviour change".

"Everyone knows that driving tired is dangerous, yet because it's not illegal and we can get away with it, many of us still do it."

Official figures show driver fatigue contributes to 12 per cent of fatal crashes.

But Auckland University marketing lecturer Tom Agee said it was "hugely expensive" considering the audience of 5000 people who watched the play.

"It's not cost-effective - $5000 for every 1000 people is a huge amount of money.

"A television advertisement might cost four times as much to produce but it would be reaching hundreds of thousands of people every time it aired."

Agee, who has more than 30 years' experience in the advertising and marketing industry, was also sceptical about the campaign's effectiveness.

"I would suspect the results will be questionable. I think there would be better ways to spend the money, including not spending it. They should really survey the people in the theatre afterwards and figure out the impact it had."

He also wondered if patrons of the Downstage Theatre were the correct audience to be targeting safe-driving messages to.

"People of all backgrounds are guilty of bad driving but the people at the theatre would tend to have a high socio-economic status and be educated and intellectual. I wouldn't think this demographic are the worst offenders."

Agee said for the same price, NZTA could run three full-page newspaper advertisements and hit a significantly larger audience.

But the idea did have some merit. "It's a quirky stunt that will get a few people talking."

Knackstedt said the ad was "very good value for money".

"We own the intellectual property. We can run it for other productions, we can put it online, on YouTube," he said.

"While it is directly reaching 5000 people, the ad is a talking point. We get news coverage and it doesn't cost us a penny."

The ad runs for five minutes before December Brother. It cost $15,000 to produce and another $10,000 to run over the month-long production.