Health Canada spent $180k on vaping awareness social media PSAs
Health Canada hired an outside firm to create $180,000 worth of vaping and cigarette awareness videos for social media platforms including Snapchat and government Instagram accounts.
The documents were provided in response to an order paper question submitted on February 5, 2020 by Conservative Party MP Dean Allison (Niagara West).
Here's what Allison asked:
With regard to videos produced by the government for public distribution, since January 1, 2019: (a) what are the details of all such videos, including (i) date, (ii) duration, (iii) title, (iv) purpose, (v) intended audience; (b) for each video, what were the total expenditures, broken down by type of expense; and (c) through which Internet sites, social media platforms, television stations, or streaming sites was each video distributed?
A list of hundreds of social media videos were returned.
Health Canada produced a series of advertisements and native content for a variety of social media platforms.
Here's what each ad cost to produce — the marketing budget to actually hire ad time to play the videos don't appear to be included.
$16,938 for “Mechanics of Vaping”
Two videos to “inform and education Canadians about the mechanical and chemical process of combustion and the process of vaping” were produced in both French and English for a total of four.
The videos were aimed at youth, young adults and parents and cost $16,938 in total.
$16,938 for “Behind the Smoke”
Four videos (two in English, two in French) were created to “inform and educate Canadians about the mechanical and chemical process of combustion and smoking of cigarettes.”
Total cost: $16,938.
$28,708.85 for “Don't wait to quit smoking”
Two videos total (one in English and one in French) were created to “encourage young adult smokers to think about quitting smoking.”
$117,778 for “Consider the consequences of vaping”
A total of twenty videos (ten in English and ten in French) were produced in different lengths to address the following issues: Nicotine addiction, lung damage, harmful chemicals and unknown long-term effects.
The videos were used as native content for Government social media sites, and as advertisements on Snapchat, Instagram, at cinames and on "various web sites targeted to youth."
Total cost: $117,779.99.
$6,360 for ANOTHER “Consider the consequences of vaping”
Same as above, except in a format suitable for Instagram.
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