Misleading job grant ads fell on deaf ears anyway: survey

OTTAWA — A $2.5-million government ad campaign to promote the not-yet-existent Canada Job Grant appears to have resonated with few outside the office of the country’s advertising watchdog.

Eighty-five per cent of Canadians who participated in a public opinion survey this summer couldn’t recall ever seeing the advertisements that ran for seven weeks starting last May on television during the NHL playoffs and on popular internet sites like YouTube and MuchMusic. Of those who did see the ads, 95 per cent said they weren’t compelled to do anything after viewing them.

According to a report on the survey, the ad was “designed to drive adults between the ages of 18-50 to the ActionPlan.gc.ca/Skills website or call 1 800 O-Canada to get more information.”

Just five per cent of respondents who viewed the ad said they visited the website, while two per cent called the 1-800 number.

The campaign, however, did earn some unwanted attention from Advertising Standards Canada. The watchdog organization received more than 20 consumer complaints about the ads and concluded in August that they were indeed “misleading” as they led viewers to believe the grant program was imminent.

In fact, the program is a joint partnership between the federal government, the provinces and employers and tense negotiations are ongoing to bring the provinces — which have a number of concerns about the job grant — on board.

While the ads were found to breach the Canadian Code of Advertising, the government got little more than a slap on the wrist since it withdrew the ad and promised it wouldn’t air again in its “current form.” The self-regulating body’s only remedy is to ask that an ad be changed or removed.

Considered the centrepiece of the last budget, the grant is supposed to provide up to 130,000 low-skilled workers and Canadians who are ineligible for Employment Insurance each year with $15,000 to retrain. Under the proposal, the federal government would contribute up to $5,000 per person, while the provinces and employers would be expected to at least match Ottawa’s portion. The idea is that participating employers would ultimately hire those whose training they subsidize.

The federal government, however, is funding its obligations by clawing back $300 million in provincial transfer payments and many provinces are worried about additional costs, the impact on existing programs and the emphasis on on-the-job training.

The telephone survey of 2,000 Canadians was conducted between June 24 and July 7, 2013. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.19 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: Tobi Cohen