The Voice Referendum powered a surge in Australian Government advertising spending for the 2023-24 financial year, according to Department of Finance figures released at the end of the year.
Total ad spend grew by 40 per cent to $250.6 million, which includes media spend of $173.8 million (up 32 per cent) and production costs of $76.6 million (up 60 per cent).
This makes FY24 the government’s second biggest spending year in advertising in the past 16, only beaten by the $339 million spent in 2021-22 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It also contrasts the Albanese government’s previous pledge to rein in advertising spend.
By channel, digital accounted for the largest slice of the media pie with $75.9 million, followed by TV ($54.7 million), out of home ($17.7 million) and radio ($15.2 million). The government spent a pittance on newspapers ($3.7 million) and magazines ($400,000), which aligns with the Albanese Government’s preference to invest more in digital media rather than print.
Past Ten Years of Australian Government Ad Spend
| Year | Media ($ million) |
Campaign development costs ($ million) | Total ($ million) |
| 2023-24 | 173.8 | 76.6 | 250.6 |
| 2022–23 | 131.4 | 47.9 | 179.3 |
| 2021–22 | 239.6 | 99.6 | 339.2 |
| 2020–21 | 145.3 | 40.9 | 186.1 |
| 2019–20 | 127.9 | 28.9 | 156.8 |
| 2018–19 | 140.0 | 48.3 | 188.3 |
| 2017–18 | 157.0 | 46.1 | 203.1 |
| 2016–17 | 100.1 | 33.2 | 133.3 |
| 2015–16 | 174.7 | 57.2 | 231.9 |
| 2014–15 | 107.1 | 46.5 | 153.6 |
Ethnic minorities, regional Australia (largely) ignored
Less than six per cent ($10.1 million) of the media budget was spent on ‘ethnic’ media, despite a quarter of Australians speaking a language other than English at home.
Regional Australia also copped a raw deal. The government spent $34.2 million (19.5 per cent) on regional media despite about 32 per cent of the population living outside Australia’s capital cities.
About 4 per cent ($6.8 million) was invested in First Nations media, matching the proportion of first nations people across the broader population.
Nearly a third of that total, and a quarter of the ethnic spend, went towards informing First Nations and ethnic minorities to enrol in The Voice referendum vote.
Big spenders, agency winners
UM is the government’s media agency and was responsible for handling its media budget. As B&T revealed last year, UM will continue in this role for another three years after winning the federal government’s master media services contract.
There is a roster of creative agencies that work with the government and tender to work on departmental campaigns. This includes Droga5, VML, Ogilvy, BMF, Clemenger BBDO and TBWA.
Agencies that won the most work include BMF with eight government campaigns, Clemenger BBDO with five and Ogilvy with four.
As per usual, the Defence Force Recruiting campaign was the largest in 2023-24, with a media spend of $41.4 million.
VML is the ad agency behind the work, although it will relinquish its duties to TBWA this year. The advertising contract is valued at $7 million, but total expenditure reached $16.3 million.
In September, the Australian Defence Force and VML released a 3D OOH campaign, ‘Make Your Impact’ (see video above).
The second most expensive campaign was the Australian Election Commission’s ‘Referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament’ with a media spend of $23.9 million. BMF led the work with a contract value at $1.125 million and expenditure of $577,000.
The next largest campaign informed Aussies about Albo’s tax cuts with $15.8 million worth of media thrown at it.
Clemenger BBDO was the ad agency behind it with a contract worth $2.34 million and expenditure of $2 million.
Campaigns aimed to protect children from sexual abuse ($12 million), hacking and online security ($8.2 million) and inform people about the Murray-Darling Basin’s importance ($7.9 million) also secured solid investments.
Aside from The Voice referendum, ethnic media received the most funding for campaigns about tax cuts, child safety and the Murray-Darling Basin.
Defence force recruiting was an area where the government targeted First Nation’s media, ahead of all campaigns aside from The Voice.
