Clive Palmer outspent some of Australia’s biggest brands in the lead-up to the recent Federal Election.

An external consultant’s investigation into political advertising during the election, funded by Labor, found Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) spent $15m on ads in the final three weeks of the campaign, dwarfing the Coalition’s $6.3m and Labor’s $7m.

The assessment also found Palmer spent a proportionally higher amount of his budget on the final messaging of the campaign, which attacked Bill Shorten directly.

Nielsen data from June 2018 and May 2019 shows the UAP was the sixth-highest spender nationally for advertising, with a total spend of $67 million.

This put the party ahead of Sportsbet, Telstra, Bunnings, Coles, Toyota and McDonald’s, with no other political party even cracking the top 50.

Despite the big budget, Palmer’s advertising efforts ultimately proved fruitless, as one creative director parodied in his hilarious spoof.