No cost-benefit analysis prior to €250k 'We are Cork' campaign
No cost-benefit analysis was carried out before Cork’s two local authorities committed over €250,000 to a marketing campaign for the county.
On Saturday the Irish Examiner revealed the “We are Cork” branding exercise and an economic marketing strategy for the region has cost €290,305.10.
Cork City Council will provide €139,407.34 of this, while the county’s local authority will pay €115,897.78, with the rest paid by other stakeholders.
The level of expense and the We are Cork logo’s similarity to existing brands has drawn criticism.
Pat Ledwidge, the deputy chief executive of Cork City Council, yesterday revealed that no cost-benefit analysis on the campaign was conducted prior to its approval.
“We haven’t done a formal cost-benefit analysis, we will do a formal analysis post the project, when we see how it has worked out,” Mr Ledwidge told PJ Coogan on 96FM’s Opinion Line programme.
“The genesis of this project was identified as necessary as far back as 2000 in the original Cork Area Strategic Plan and we started to work on it about six years ago when the city council, county council, and Cork Chamber decided it was time to move on this,” he said.
“We chose to do it as a group project rather than an individual project because we felt it was important to have all the stakeholders in the city and county working together.”
Mr Ledwidge said while it would have been “simpler and cheaper” for the councils to take on the campaign themselves, they lack the in-house expertise required for such an undertaking.
He said the options available were to produce the campaign in-house, establish a special purpose vehicle via a separate company that would oversee the initiative, or engage with consultants.
Meanwhile, Cork Chamber moved to defend the initiative.
“Our latest Quarterly Economic Survey to business members resoundingly supports the need to grow international awareness of Cork, highlighting this as one of our top priorities,” chamber chief executive Conor Healy said in a statement yesterday.
In an increasingly competitive international environment, the ‘do nothing’ approach is not an option for any ambitious city region.
“We need to tell our story of energy, ambition, determination, and enterprise and ‘We Are Cork’ is an integral part of that storytelling,” said Mr Healy.
