BBC to give go-ahead for £20m spend

The BBC is set to double its advertising spend to &£20m in a bid to help market its new digital services and cross-promote all its products and the parent brand.

The corporation’s board of governors is due to approve the increased advertising spend – which two years ago stood at only &£5m – within the next two weeks.

Under the guidance of the marketing department, the board has already decided that one of the key priorities for the BBC as it moves further into digital, multichannel broadcasting, will be to “connect” with its audiences, adding to the corporation’s public service mantra of “inform, entertain, educate”.

BBC marketing director Andy Duncan says: “In the past, the BBC has been labelled as arrogant and accused of ‘talking at’ people. We need to connect with people in a two-way dialogue.”

Part of the new strategy will be implemented through customer carelines, improved monitoring of viewers’ e-mails about programmes, and advertising and trailers designed to cross-promote other BBC services, and the BBC itself, through content messages. Duncan has no plans to use corporate campaigns in the mould of the Perfect Day campaign, which featured a host of well-known singers. Instead services such as Radio 1 will be expected to “give something back” to the BBC by promoting other channels which have an overlapping audience profile.