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IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SDLP MLA BURNS: SLAMS TRANSLINK £2 MILLION SPEND ON ADVERTISING
 

SDLP South Antrim MLA Thomas Burns has said that Translink should stop wasting money on extravagant advertising campaigns and concentrate on making buses and trains run on time.

He was speaking after figures released in the Assembly showed Translink has spent nearly two million pounds on television, radio, newspaper and outdoor advertising over the past five years.

He said: “This spending is quite ridiculous. In 2003/04 Translink spent over £200k on adverts, which is bad enough, but the fact that this figure has more than trebled in 2007/08 is somewhat outrageous.

“At a time when commuters are having to endure massive price hikes, supposedly because of the rising cost of fuel, Translink seem to be quite happy to splash the cash, spending tens of thousands of pounds on fancy TV advertising campaigns.

“I’m not saying Translink should not do any marketing – some of their campaigns are very important - I am thinking of those which warn against anti-social behaviour or those which promote new routes in local papers and so on. It is important that these promotions continue so the public remain well informed about issues which affect them and their local area.”

The SDLP representative further commented that he believed Translink, Metro, Ulsterbus and NIR were already “well established brands” and the “unnecessary self promotion” should be scaled back to save taxpayers money.

He added: “I hear a lot of mumbo-jumbo about brand building, public relations, customer engagement, market position and so on - but none of this justifies this massive level of spending. It is completely unnecessary. Translink run a monopoly, they have no competition. They don’t need to engage in massive levels of self promotion. Everyone knows who they are and what they do.

“If Translink want to enhance their credibility they should improve the frequency and reliability of services and reduce fares. They should get extra buses on the roads and cut back on the TV adverts.”

Money spent by Translink on Advertising

ENDS