DTI launches info service Net campaign

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is launching an online campaign to promote its new Consumer Direct telephone, online and e-mail information and advice service for consumers.

Consumer Direct provides advice on consumer protection issues, including what rights consumers have or how to get redress for poor service or faulty goods.

Run by the DTI in partnership with local authorities and existing services, including Trading Standards, there will be 11 contact centres across the UK. It has already launched in Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber, with the South-west of England and Wales going live later this month. It will operate nationally by spring 2007.

Randommedia, which won the work in July without a pitch on the basis of previous work for the DTI, has produced three treatments which focus on the problems consumers might face, such as replacements for faulty items. Media buying, by i-level, will concentrate on regional online newspapers (such as Scotsman.com), online local radio and local online directory services.

Randommedia chief executive, Victor Benady says: “The message needs to be very straightforward and uncomplicated, although obviously the campaign will evolve over time, as new regions are added.”

In March, the DTI appointed McCann Erickson Manchester and Mediaedge:CIA to handle the above-the-line account for the service’s launch (MW March 11).